This show brings together four contemporary artists whose works, in their different ways, draw power and pull from the uncanny affinity humans find—or project—between themselves and nature. In their search for the emotional and spiritual essence of natural flora, fauna, and phenomena, these works call to mind the same age-old sentiments expressed in the cave paintings of Lascaux (reproduced here in etchings by Simon Carr), Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Shinto animism, and Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy.
They capture the ability of nature to threaten, to comfort, to nourish, and to strike awe – and through it all, to somehow possess a spirit of its own. With a modern intelligence – and Modernist sensibilities – these four artists re-animate ancient subjects, and carry one of humanity’s earliest artistic obsessions into the 21st century.