Futurescapes: Landscapes of Deep Time

Let your mind rest in these gardens. Let the eye wander. Stand back. Come forward.

This on-going series of work springs from a constant speculation I have had with the physical human body and our organic legacy, specifically the material consequences of how we treat the body today will continue into the future. How our former existence will make changes unfathomable to us—changes already happening.

Themes of impermanence, such as senesence, ephemory and transformation. What are we laying to rest? And what will it become in the future? As the world churns us, sinks, breaks and compresses us, are we a coral reef, a diamond, a resource?

Storytime:
In art college, I had a professor who was very health conscious. Highly active, healthy eating, all the Good Things. At the end of every semester he would bake the most delicious chocolate zucchini cake to celebrate the class, and remind the youngins that veggies are good, too. An edgy student once said to him, “You’ll be the healthiest corpse in the graveyard.”

I have been spinning on these themes ever since, only recently able to channel the thoughts into a visual form. (I spent many years not realizing they were paintings). It wasn’t until I read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, that I could articulate and think critically about the nature, and consquences, of Deep Time.

Surely, our bodies will have a lasting legacy. We are billions. Sugar and oil and syrups and salts and preservatives and hormones and Red Dye #somethin’.

The body matters. The mind vanishes. You will forget. The Earth will adapt.