黑料不打烊

Still Life refers to the transcendalist notion that we must look for a long time before we see, and that slowness is essential to science, philosophy, poetry, and by extension, a deeper understanding our world.

Traditionally an arrangement of perishable objects, such as fruits, flowers, wine, meats and cheeses, the still life is immortalized by the artist鈥檚 hand before the flowers wilt, fruits brown, wine turns, and foods sour. Intent observation and delicate execution, informed by years of study, apprenticeship, and experience bring the image close to life.

Rather than depicting the traditional genre of still life, these artists employ materials and processes to relate the landscape through extracts and arrangements of plants, earth, planets, and archetypes. Observation, repetition, ritual, and deliberate execution informs and comprise the fabric of their works. References to land suggest expanded ideas of temporality and measure as meditation; lost in the immensity of geological time or the awe-inspiring aspirations of the landscape genre.

Beautifully rendered abstractions of nature and the cosmos belie stauncher ideals associated with a synchronous slower pace, proposing that measured observation and reflection can be an act of protest and defiance in an age of rapid acceleration and hasty politics.

Here, there is an active hold on life; preserving what we love of the present, no eye to how it may devolve. There is still life.