I feel extremely honoured to be giving an artist talk at the State University of New York, Geneseo, and exhibiting in my first American solo show at Kinetic Gallery! Kinetic Gallery is a student-run gallery space in the SUNY Geneseo College Union hosting exhibits by professional and student artists. In addition, the gallery hosts arts related programming to enhance arts-related discourse on campus.
The show opening and artist talk is on Friday, January 31st @ 1:30 in the MacVittie College Union room 209 and the exhibition will run until February 28th. Looking forward to this adventure and special thank-you to Chelsea Butkowski, creative director of Kinetic Gallery!
-Christie
Dear all! I disappeared for a bit because I have been working on a new series! I have been on a quest searching for the right medium to express the heartbreaking beauty of a new theme, de-extinction.
Perhaps we all first heard this story of man’s hubris from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, “Jurassic Park”, based on a novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. Today, the achievability of resurrecting species with modern genomic technology is real. In March 2013, Revive and Restore, an organization dedicated to coordinating genomic technology for conservation, hosted a conference with National Geographic and TedX. Biologists, ethicists and conservationists discussed the moral and logistical reasons for bringing back extinct species by using DNA synthesis in conjunction with authentic DNA information from museum specimens. The prime candidates are recently extinct species and ones that humans have specifically driven to extinction, such as the thylacine or the passenger pigeon. This has inspired a range of visceral reactions, such as adult horror and childlike wonder. Animal resurrection is a unique and contemporary question we are facing- humans, the most intelligent species on earth, have the hard-earned power to make right what we have done wrong, and we are considering it now because in our hearts we can feel regret and honour.
Chinese river dolphin in progress
I will post real pictures of the series soon, but as you can see I am painting on mirror! Oh mirrors. (… I’m trying to segue into this next thing:) I just received in the mail Simon Lewis’s, Observances, a collection of evocative reflections weaved into romantic sentences by the artist. Please find one below:
“Mirrors: when we hunt reality and hang its skin upon our walls. ” – Simon Lewis
-Christie
