Death As An Evolutionary Force

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 9, 2012 at 3:53pm

Curator’s Comment:  

 

To say these x-ray based pieces are haunting and slightly macabre perhaps tells you more about my own sensibilities than the works themselves.  I suppose the very nature of x-rayed imagery is one of studied neutrality, be it for scientific or medical intentions.  But the conjured mutations suggest not only the images, but the living beings themselves are at the mercy of an experimenting creator or empowered seer.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so unsettling to see genetic irregularities- the idea of malevolent genetic tampering is only slightly more disturbing than completely random and uncontrolled transmutation.  But inarguably there is an arresting and unnerving beauty is the ghostly semi-transparency of the white forms. The inky blackness of the surrounding picture creates a dramatic emptiness; a disassociated void. I particular like the piece entitled Death As An Evolutionary Force for its composite symmetry, and blurring of exacting focus.  The limb lines thrusting downward on either side of the skull create a dynamic energy that contrasts the passivity of the empty face.  The outward looking poses of the primate skeletal bodies more forward and backward in time, echoing the idea of progression in the title, but ultimately counterbalancing each other visually in a static equilibrium.   The subject of death easily lends itself to this spectral process.  It’s as if the mechanical, dissecting vision of the x-ray stares unwaveringly into what is known to us on a more visceral, intuitive and wholly emotional level.