Adam Gunn

Ruckenfigur

2019

I made these paintings in response to a prediction for a change in the colour of the sky and oceans as a consequence of man-made climate change. This idea described by Peter Ward in his book Under a Pale Green Sky is based on his study of the great mass extinction events of the past. For many of these extinction events the earth’s chemistry changed the sky to green and the oceans purple. My personal memories are often tied to colour – my first recollection is of an orange cup...

In his book Now or Never naturalist Tim Flannery describes a vision of a world with a dead purple ocean and a poisonous green sky. This is a world where warming has melted the ice caps and slowed down the circulation of the oceans so that they have become like a gigantic stagnant pond. This still oxygen depleted water will allow the proliferation of anoxygenic bacteria that will change the chemistry of the ocean making it poisonous to oxygen dependant life. These bacteria will also release hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere causing a mass extinction of animal and plant life on land. This stark yet colourful world will be sublimely beautiful, but there will be no one around to see it. This series of paintings depicts an imagining of our world after the catastrophic consequences of climate change through a reinterpretation of well-known images with a romantic sensibility towards nature. Romanticism was in part a reaction to the industrial revolution marked by a nostalgia for an untouched natural world and a reverence for its overwhelming power. Ironically the spread and continuation of that industrialism is predicted to set in motion a new version of nature that will completely overpower the human world as we know it. With these thoughts in mind, I’ve sourced some paintings associated with the romantic movement and removed the human figures from them – the only evidence of people are the decaying ruins left behind in this uncanny green and purple landscape. I’ve also referenced some photographs from the Apollo moon missions that are thought to have influenced the beginning of modern environmental awareness. The starting point for this series of paintings was Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead...

My painting practice began with subverting the idea of a still life to create an absurd experience where the presence of carefully observed and exaggerated absurd forms painted from ...

In his book Now or Never naturalist Tim Flannery describes a vision of a world with a dead purple ocean and a poisonous green sky. This is a world where warming has melted the ice ca...

“Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.” A quote oft attributed to various sources that was never actually uttered by any of them. Though Mark Twain elaborated on the sentiment: “Ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms.” In the Framed Series, I use my 1% contribution to combine issues of consumption with my autobiography. I paint copies of copies of paintings within paintings to reference the appropriation, commodification, and altered continuum of art. My paintings of paintings are based on photographs of originals to perpetuate the continual distillation of form, given the ease with which images are presently exchanged and modified. Further, by reducing historically significant paintings to framed objects hanging on walls, I augment art as a commodity and reconcile the conflict between the artificially assigned monetary value of artworks with the reality that they are simply swirls of paint. In this way, I am also acknowledging the literality of my own work. I have also altered each copied painting to personalize the context of the pieces and address specific autobiographical ideas. These ideas relate to a range of both recent and distant experiences, both funny and sad. Although my initial renderings are digital image composites, my medium of choice is oil paint, applied in transparent layers, using the image on the computer screen as a reference. In addition to its lush visual properties, I enjoy the flexibility of oil paint in making acute renderings as well as the evolution of the imagery from paint to digital and back to paint in further protracting both the distillation and evolution of form. statement on piece "The character Jame Gumb, from the 1991 film and 1988 book, The Silence of the Lambs...

Jeremy Prim is a contemporary artist, based in Seattle, Washington. He is known for his evocative abstract seascapes, inspired by the beauty of the ocean and the emotion one feels in...

The work is a canvas with a wooden frame; the subject is a mountain whose colours blend with the sky in the background.

A contemporary oil painting on linen by American artist A.J. Fries. Artist’s Statement: These works are an extension of a small series of realistic paintings that I did of graves...