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CURTIS BARTONE: "PARADISE, ONCE GIVEN" Jan. 10-Feb.15, 2003
Bartone's work over the past decade has addressed the subject of man's domination of and intervention in the natural environment, most recently depicting objects stolen from nature and reassembled in ways that suggested packaging for human consumption, and/or the environmental impacts of this consumption. The work in the current show continues to probe this topic, but in different ways than in the past. In his current drawings, Bartone invites comparisons with 17th century Dutch still life painting and 18th and 19th century scientific depictions of nature, in the way that he portrays animal and plant species and their surroundings with an imaginary quality. In the 17th century, this "make-believe" appearance reflected the unexplored mystery of the natural world; today, these images are filtered and romanticized through longing, memory and nostalgia, because many of their natural environments have been destroyed by human development and no longer exist. To artists before the 20th century, "wilderness" was something mysterious and unknown, whereas now "wilderness" is longed for, mourned, and desperately reconstructed.
The current show consists of graphite and silverpoint drawings on paper and masonite that suggest a romanticized view of the subject matter through use of imagery and through the approach to drawing. The drawings employ some aspects of traditional atmospheric perspective, where objects are rendered with higher contrast in the foreground and lower contrast in the background; however, selective elements in the background are highlighted to create focal points, while other elements are blurred, suggesting the way in which images are filtered by memory and selectively recalled over time. The scale of some of the drawings is larger than Bartone's recent past work, allowing for more extreme size differences to further communicate the hierarchy of the images. Bartone's imagery has been strongly influenced by his recent move to Savannah, where he has been spending significant time observing the swamps, waterfowl, and other natural elements of his new surroundings.
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