Un-Nature

Through April 25, free, Little Berlin Gallery, 119 Montgomery St., 610-308-0579, myspace.com/berlinlittle.

by Lauren F. Friedman

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Published: Apr 7, 2009

visual art

Romanticism's idealized version of the wilderness was long overdue for an update. In "Un-Nature," the artists have focused on the potential ugliness that can emerge when nature clashes with man and technology, creating a new aesthetic that curator Alex Gartelmann calls "grotesque Romanticism." Bonnie Brenda Scott fabricated an artificial deer and turned a photo of a man and his obese cat into Pop Art, while Katie Elia embellished organic materials like skulls and turtle shells with psychedelic, fluorescent designs. Adam Bush's photographs of uprooted, displaced tree trunks on pedestals evoke Duchamp's ready-mades, and Nathaniel Butler's digital collages and videos highlight man's slow but steady encroachment on places that were once untouched. Says Gartelmann, "Their work is a projection of the future potential of what our relationship to the natural world will be."

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