Art Exhibition by Curtis Bartone: Lay Waste Our Powers

Thursday, January 18, 2018- February 1, 2018 Multiday event - 15 days

Salmon Library

Gallery

Art Exhibition by Curtis Bartone: Lay Waste Our Powers (Artist Lecture: Thursday, February 1st at 5PM)

Filtered through the lens of art history, the natural sciences, literature, religion/mythology and contemporary mass media, Curtis Bartone's artistic inquiries explore the idea of wilderness and how it has changed from being a mysterious, tangible, and often romanticized, place to an even more distorted fiction or myth taking form in artificial and virtual realities. This myth has a powerful affect on our fragmented perception of the environment and our place in it. Bartone's recent pieces combine various perceptions of the natural world, ranging from non-objective, scientific views to Judeo-Christian ideas of mankind’s dominion over “every living thing that moveth upon the earth” to pagan views of natural occurrences as codes or messages to be deciphered. This work fuses Renaissance painting, 17th-century Dutch still life, 19th-century scientific illustration, natural science museum collections, with a contemporary aesthetic informed by photography and mass media.

Focusing on the continuum of harmony and conflict in which humans exist within the natural world—its plants, animals, landscape, and weather—and the self-centered way in which people define and evaluate nature, Burtone's has been analyzing references to nature in literature—mainly in the Christian Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. This research informs the imagery in his most recent prints and serves as a point of departure to comment on contemporary environmental issues and crises, where modern “plagues” and “unnatural deeds” are often being perpetuated by a rejection of science and a lack of compassion for the earth and the other living things that inhabit it. The tug-of-war between chaos and balance that surfaces in literary sources has even infused his working process. Through the use of multiple layers, Bartone strives to visually communicate the constant back-and-forth between abandonment and control that is not only the literal process of printmaking but is also a metaphor for our relationship to nature.


Details

Category
Arts & Entertainment
department
Library, College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Art Art History and Design
Audience
Public, Students, Faculty and Staff, Alumni

Contact

Ilene Galloway 256.824.6114 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Venue

Salmon Library

4700 Holmes AveHuntsville, AL 35899

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