Michael, your allegorical work current themes of catastrophe and local weather change. Whereas it’s an existential menace, is there any hope for humanity, in any respect?
I suppose my sincere reply is I attempt to be hopeful, however I concern issues are going to get lots worse earlier than they enhance. I was extra optimistic in regards to the state of affairs. I believed we’d have made extra important modifications by now. However with every passing yr, it appears we proceed alongside this path of rampant consumption and extra. And the folks benefiting from the way in which issues are, have little incentive to alter. We’re quickly reworking the planet. Disrupting ecosystems, driving species into extinction, and filling the world with plastic. The checklist goes on. And it’s stated we’ve pumped sufficient greenhouse gases into the environment by now that, even when we have been to pivot and cease all emissions, the local weather will proceed to develop hotter. To not be such a downer, however I feel it’s turning into frick’n critical. For this reason I’m so compelled to voice my considerations by means of my artwork.
In the long run people will in all probability handle to muddle by means of this mess. I simply really feel it’s unlucky. We may have spared ourselves, and the planet, loads of hardship if we had merely made wiser selections years in the past. That being stated, in the present day’s younger technology offers me hope. They appear to acknowledge how dire that is turning into. I hope they can preserve our species from going over a cliff.
Convey on the Dinosaurs! It’s laborious to not discover the prevailing dinosaur in your newest physique of labor. Coupled with a dystopian near-future, these huge creatures are seen stomping their manner by means of iconic capitalistic symbols, together with gasoline stations…
Yeah, these prehistoric creatures are supposed to symbolize the violent forces we’ve unleashed upon the earth. They’re principally a visible illustration of an summary idea like local weather change. A century and half of pumping carbon into the environment was certain to have some unfavorable penalties. We’ve successfully liberated these ghosts from the previous, and now the dinosaurs are wrecking havoc upon our world. Now we have manifested this downside upon ourselves.
The Pterodactyls appear to have discovered an ideal house within the dilapidated Chevron station although…
Properly, that’s only a humorous tackle my perception that the earth shall be tremendous in the long run. Despite our species ecological influence upon the planet, nature will adapt, and life will go on. Whether or not or not we’re part of that future continues to be unclear…
…I’ve at all times thought plastic dinosaur toys have been meta artwork objects of and by themselves. The dino toys are molded with plastic which comes from oil, which wouldn’t be doable with out fossil fuels… and the dinosaurs! I get that very same feeling along with your work, seeing the dinosaurs confront the gasoline stations…
, I hadn’t thought of that angle about toy dinosaurs made from plastic. However you’re proper. Our society is awash with plastic.
I’m significantly drawn to the portray of the buried automotive piles, stacked and kind of decomposing ever-so-slowly, effectively under the earth’s floor. How did they get there?
I consider that portray as a parable about penalties, or the idea of “trigger and impact”. These vehicles, all clustered collectively, characterize our society’s legacy of fossil gasoline consumption. Now, simply to be clear, I’ve nothing in opposition to vehicles. I feel they’re helpful. They permit us to maneuver about, and help our capability to conduct commerce. It’s simply that our present paradigm is just not sustainable. So the vehicles you see listed here are being subsumed by a radically modified world, a world reworked by our dependancy to fossil fuels.
The dinos appear to be thriving on this explicit portray…
Yeah, I name the portray “Reversal of Fortune”. As a result of our actions have freed these dinosaurs from beneath the bottom, they now get to cavort across the floor, inflicting all types of environmental havoc, like catastrophic floods and droughts, and turning the planet right into a hothouse. In fact the irony is now it’s the vehicles that are entombed within the earth.
A century and half of pumping carbon into the environment was certain to have some unfavorable penalties.