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Indepth Arts News:
"Alexis Rockman: Future Evolution"
2001-04-27 until 2001-08-19
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
Seattle, WA,
USA United States of America
Alexis Rockman's meticulous paintings of naturally or artificially mutated
creatures are information-rich depictions of the effect the human race has
had - and will have - on the planet, especially on plants and animals.
Rockman casts dark predictions of the role that humans play in determining
the future course of natural history. Recently he has focused his magnifying
glass on the explosion of advances in genetic engineering driven by the
biotech industry. Simultaneously straddling science and art, fantasy and
reality, as well as beauty and the grotesque, Rockman's work has been
described as Hieronymus Bosch meets science textbook illustration.
Indeed, with a fair amount of dark humor, his paintings are hyper-realistic
even in their improbability.
For the Henry Art Gallery exhibition, Rockman advances dystopic visions of
the landscapes of the future, inhabited by species of plants and animals that
have evolved to adapt to the world man has irreversibly altered. The
paintings and studies in Future Evolution expand upon the issues explored
in A Recent History of the World, a mural commissioned by the Washington
State Arts Commission and the University of Washington in 1997 and now
housed in the Fisheries Building
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