黑料不打烊

Canadian painter Martin Wittfooth’s show at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles is titled Deus ex Terra (God from the Earth). The title is a deliberate rewording of the original Latin phrase Deus ex Machina (God from the machine), a familiar classical allusion to the carefully hidden machinery that cleverly lifted actors playing flying deities into the air, and to other special effects of the ancient theater – the apparatus discreetly concealed from the audience behind scenery, creating a seamless illusion of impossible supernatural visions on the stage, suspending disbelief, and welcoming audiences into a convincing fantasy for the duration of the performance. The secret machines of the sophisticated theater were the source of wonder – but the wonder was a deception, and any deep convictions the machines inspired could only be lies and artifice. The chasm between representation and the truth persuaded Plato to exile poets and artists from his perfect Republic when he recognized the potential power of systematic manipulation offered by the arts.

But if the dangerously illusory and fickle Gods of the classical pantheon were raised in flight by the apparatus of ancient theater, now, more monstrous deities are emerging from the illusory machinery of 21^st century technology, whose proscenium is in every pocket, whose sophistication has elevated deception to unprecedented levels of perfection, and whose dominance over the imagination of our post-modern people seems almost complete. We are slaves to the spectacle, but there is relief if we can turn our attention to the emergent qualities of nature instead. Wittfooth said, “We have computers in our pockets at all times constantly telling us things are falling apart… but nature is constantly showing us reminders of its own magic.”

Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Earth, Oil on panel, 48" x 36" (50" x 38" framed in Brazilian wood) (left) Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Fire, Oil on panel, 48" x 36" (50" x 38" framed in Brazilian wood) (right)

His paintings are welcome observations that a more honest, more grounded wonder begins within the beauty of natural phenomena, especially within the wet world where slippery mushrooms and sea-creatures rise from the elemental ingredients of ocean and forest, where life emerges willy-nilly from the fertile soil and seafloor. He has created three groups of imagery for the show. The seasons are each represented as allegorical horses; the elements embodied as horse, bear, stag, and wolf; and an idiosyncratic series of tondos with subjects slipping between earthy and watery flora and fauna. He enjoys the in-between entities occupying the liminal space between what is above and below the boundaries of the elements.

Wittfooth is an enthusiastic amateur scuba diver. The underwater world he witnesses has changed his perception of the forest life he observes at the ranch he lives on in Canada. “I’ve always loved seeing those strange parallels nature presents to us,” he said, “whether we’re in an aquatic environment or a terrestrial one, there are these interesting repetitions of forms and palettes echoing one another.” A series of tondos, each titled Parallelism, offer a sensual feast of pleasure, and subtle incongruity, each showing formal parallels between life above and below the waterline – an iridescent octopus nestles in a floral bouquet; a hummingbird rests beside tropical fish on a growing coral; a jellyfish drifts above a spread of fungi.

Martin Wittfooth, Parallelism 7, Oil on wood, 18" diameter/round 

He explained, “In this whole show, there’s a complete absence of any human artifice. There’s not a single suggestion that we’re in these paintings at all, whereas a lot of past paintings had that.” However, his new and spectacular Duel diptych maintains a dense continuity between his past work and this new exhibit, pitching two big-horned rams into a seasonal battle of sunny summer and cold winter, with a golden solar sphere at the center where the thick-boned heads are about to collide – an arc of fire promising the erupting supernova that will explode when the violent elemental power of fire and ice clash. In the left panel the scent of warm summer drifts with butterflies fluttering among foxgloves and magnolias, and sunflowers herald their season, though the ram still wears a coat of winter’s fallen snow. Snow grips the right panel, and though birds and caterpillars seem unperturbed by the season, the matted ram is dark and gnarled. The dense flora and fauna that filled his earlier paintings fills these, too, as a luxurious spread of tasty visual treats to be savored.

Martin Wittfooth, Duel (diptych), Oil on panels, 36" x 144"

Aspect of Air is a cloudy stallion rising from a mountain; Earth a mycological delight of fungi sprouting from a mare’s rearing body; Fire is a fractured and volcanic creature of split lava; and seaweed and creatures encrust the body of Water. “I’m giving people beauty,” Wittfooth said, “These aren’t escapist paintings, but as worried as we may be about any situation that’s happening right now, underneath it all, nature’s cycles, the perennial rhythms, are all still there.” And although it is tempting to associate the four horses of Wittfooth’s elemental paintings with the biblical Apocalypse of John, no pale rider saddles any of them to bring conquest, war, famine, or death to our millenarian world – these paintings promise no plagues – and he has wisely shied from the temptation to reproduce the dull and didactic messaging of environmental activism, preferring to focus on the resilient vigor of fertile nature – his subject is not political, but an observation of the mystical power he witnesses in the natural world – in a real world of growth and life, not a fearful urban world of digital propaganda. Wittfooth said having children had changed his work,

Yes, there are headlines we can see any moment on our phones that tell us the world is completely f–ed, but the moment I focus on what my children are doing and how they’re absorbing the world, has softened what I wanted to paint. It’s not that I’m rid of having heavy themes in my work, but for this show, at least subconsciously it had me wanting to create something that’s leaning more to the perennial beauty of the world rather than the circumstantial, temporal chaos we’re all experiencing right now.

God is in the earth, not in the machine that only inspires fear.

Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Spring, Oil on canvas, 56" x 58" (57.5" x 59.5" framed in custom maple wood)  

Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Summer, Oil on canvas, 36" x 60" (37.5" x 61.5" framed in custom maple wood) 

These are lovely paintings, but the four equine allegories of the elements, and the Parallelism tondos are minor works in comparison to his paintings of the seasons. With these floral and fungal assemblies, Wittfooth emulates Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s brilliant seasonal and elemental paintings of the 16^th century, developing the simplicity of the centered elemental horses into compositional narratives. In Aspect of Spring a blossoming horse advances against the snow, bringing floral rebirth to the frosted land as the dark clouds of the Northern wind are pushed back by the fiery amber glow of sunrise, lighting the Beltane birth of the new sun’s season.

Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Autumn, Oil on canvas, 46" x 64" (47.5" x 65.5" framed in custom maple wood)

Martin Wittfooth, Aspect of Winter, Oil on canvas, 50" x 57" (51.5" x 58.5" framed in custom maple wood) 

Aspect of Summer brings a surprising bear burning with a volcanic inner fire like Fire even as it crosses the living reef beneath the water. Aspect of Autumn brings a stag whose coat of fall leaves and crusty tree bark is scattering before in an ochre and orange wind, and spread antlers losing their last golden leaves as a prophesy of coming winter. In Aspect of Winter a wonderful snarling ice-blue dire wolf looms gigantic and slinking between bare branches. This savage and musky wolf is a canine cousin to Wittfooth’s Wildmother of 2018, where a fertile and bare-toothed bitch spilled milk to feed the forest – unlike that faithful dog of life, this new and predatory beast brings the fanged threat of wintery death, but it is lurking over a mysterious tunnel descending into the bright depth of an iceberg – surely an invitation to the heroic soul to advance on its journey to the light despite the danger.

Martin Wittfooth's “Deus Ex Terra” is at Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S Anderson St., Los Angeles, CA 90033, from August 30 – October 4, 2025

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