Extending an Environmental Metaphor with Photoshop

Photo courtesy of NPR and of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison/Jack Shainman Gallery Guardian

Photo courtesy of NPR and of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison/Jack Shainman Gallery

Guardian

Artists, Robert and Shana Parke Harrison, present a metaphor of humankind’s desire to dominate the “Natural” world and simultaneously mend those intrusions.  Presented in a visually compelling dreamscape world, a man, or sometimes groups of men, toil(s) in an effort to remediate a pervasive environmental wasteland.  Often these tasks appear absurd in that they address apparent symptoms by tidying up a world so damaged by a surplus of waste.

The husband and wife team create these surreal images with a combination of digital media, painting, sculpture, and theater.  Their process begins like many others, with a series of sketches and 3 dimensional study models.

Photo courtesy of NPR and of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison/Jack Shainman Gallery

Guardian

Through this process they create compelling images that are both tragic and comedic as the men in the images work in vain to address problems with tools ill suited to the pursuit.  They suggest that humankind neither understands the root of the environmental degradation nor do they have to the capacity to deal with the symptomatic results of that degradation. 

 

Admittedly the duo offers that this work does not present any answers for the ecological squalor much or our planet has descended into  -  “We are not scientists, we’re artists” .  The hope is that these images will help folks “think critically more critically about humans' relationship to technology and nature, and ‘inspire change, one viewer at a time.’"

Oscar Wilde tells us, to paraphrase, that all art is useless.  This work is thought provoking, but ultimately useless.  Recognizing humankind's place in the greater ecosystem is the challenge and these images brilliantly show the futility of acting without thinking and attempting to repair that which we do not understand.  That does not however, preclude the need to seek understanding, set forth thoughtful solutions, and proffer a more symbiotic existence with the planet.