It's the final countdown...

IT'S the end of the world as we know it.

Well, not just yet. But it soon could be if doomsayers' predictions for December 21, based on a probably skewed interpretation of the Mayan calendar, comes true.

Will it really end?

But down at The Swich Contemporary Art Space the apocalyptic theme is prevalent in an exhibition of 24 local artists that will run through until December 22 called 'Size matters III: The End is Nigh'.

Swich gallery director LeAnne Vincent has announced that the much-loved art space will close on December 22 as she pursues her own artistic interests in future. December 22 will also herald an end to the current exhibition and is a date loaded with potential.

"If the end of the world comes on the 21st the artists won't have to come in and get their artworks the next day," Ms Vincent grins.

The art of David Beckett, of Wood End, certainly fits in well with the theme.

"A lot of my artwork is about the end of the world or dark themes. They fascinate me," he says.

In Materialism, his use of the square fits in with the theme of the end.

"I use a square for [symbolising] materialism because it is finite, it comes to an end," he says.

In Antichrists Anonymous, he suggests that "we are all antichrists in some way. We've got to all take responsibility for the world, rather than blame it on one person".

Kali: The Dark Mother is one of Beckett's interactive pieces where you look into the artwork and see your own eyes inside an image of Kali, the Hindu goddess of time or change.

Nina Florence is an Ipswich ceramic sculptor who has faced her fears of "war and politicians", Can Do, a cookie jar, features a face that is a mix of Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott, while We Want You highlights the aftermath of war, where she says "there is nothing left".

Prayer Before Birth is an extraordinary combination of motherhood and a First World War gas mask, based on a poem by Louis MacNiece.

"His wife was pregnant and as he went out on the battlefield he wrote a very utopian poem about how he wanted the world to be," she says.

So will the world end on December 21?

"Stranger things have happened," she says.

Will it really be the end?

DID the Mayans really predict the end of the world on December 21, 2012?

Ask doomsayers who are preparing for that date to be the cataclysm of all cataclysms and they will probably say yes.

But scholars say that that the Mayans have only predicted an end of a cycle.

The Mayan civilisation had a long-count calendar that spanned 5125 years, starting in 3114 BC and coming to the end of its cycle on December 21, 2012.

But it is seems that date is just the end of a cycle, with a new one to start again.

So it appears the only ones predicting the end are humans of the modern day, those with an overactive imagination.

Topics:  december 21 2012, mayan calendar, the swich contemporary art space