Michael, your allegorical work current themes of catastrophe and local weather change. Whereas it’s an existential risk, 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 quite a bit worse earlier than they enhance. I was extra optimistic in regards to the state of affairs. I assumed we might have made extra important adjustments by now. However with every passing yr, it appears we proceed alongside this path of rampant consumption and extra. And the folks cashing in on the best way issues are, have little incentive to vary. We’re quickly reworking the planet. Disrupting ecosystems, driving species into extinction, and filling the world with plastic. The record goes on. And it’s mentioned we’ve pumped sufficient greenhouse gases into the environment by now that, even when we had been to pivot and cease all emissions, the local weather will proceed to develop hotter. To not be such a downer, however I believe it’s changing into frick’n severe. For this reason I’m so compelled to voice my issues by my artwork.
Ultimately people will in all probability handle to muddle by this mess. I simply really feel it’s unlucky. We might have spared ourselves, and the planet, a variety of hardship if we had merely made wiser choices years in the past. That being mentioned, as we speak’s younger technology provides me hope. They appear to acknowledge how dire that is changing into. I hope they’re able to preserve our species from going over a cliff.
Carry on the Dinosaurs! It’s exhausting to not discover the prevailing dinosaur in your newest physique of labor. Coupled with a dystopian near-future, these monumental creatures are seen stomping their approach by 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 destructive penalties. We’ve successfully liberated these ghosts from the previous, and now the dinosaurs are wrecking havoc upon our world. We’ve manifested this drawback upon ourselves.
The Pterodactyls appear to have discovered an ideal dwelling within the dilapidated Chevron station although…
Properly, that’s only a humorous tackle my perception that the earth might be fantastic ultimately. Regardless of 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 had 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-about that angle about toy dinosaurs product of plastic. However you’re proper. Our society is awash with plastic.
I’m significantly drawn to the portray of the buried automobile piles, stacked and form 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, signify our society’s legacy of fossil gasoline consumption. Now, simply to be clear, I’ve nothing in opposition to vehicles. I believe they’re helpful. They permit us to maneuver about, and help our capacity to conduct commerce. It’s simply that our present paradigm just isn’t sustainable. So the vehicles you see listed below are being subsumed by a radically modified world, a world remodeled by our habit to fossil fuels.
The dinos appear to be thriving on this specific 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 kinds 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 destructive penalties.
