Abstract
Human, Nature: Disorder in Deep Time is a series of paintings which appraises and poeticizes the uncomfortable sensation of living today in the unbalanced ecology of the Anthropocene. The work in this exhibition employs a selection of subjects and materials which echo some of the crucial environmental problems we face today. Images of animal traps, chains, and plants and animals separated from their homes serve as blunt reminders of the compelling and unique way humans change and control our environments- purposefully or otherwise. Human, Nature: Disorder in Deep Time also suggests that in order to more sympathetically position humankind in natural history, we would be wise to carefully consider the lives of other species, especially living fossils such as ginkgo biloba trees, which have existed for vast expanses of geologic time- far longer than homo sapiens. What have they done right to make it here for so long, and what have we done so wrong in a comparatively short amount of time? Humans have a great deal of work to do in becoming more collaborative participants in nature. The paintings which constitute this exhibition are an indictment of any philosophy which considers humans distinct from nature. Human, Nature: Disorder in Deep Time contends with the imperfect nature of using painting to describe visual facts, and the imperfect nature of today’s world. The paint and other materials used similarly denote our contemporary state of ecological contention, using industrially produced components in tandem with others that are contrarily handmade, foraged, and grown.