Gowanus (2013).
72” x 90”. Oil and
acrylic on wood.
Image courtesy
of the artist and
Sperone Westwater.
right next to my 8’ x 18” painting now. New
Orleans could be read as an eco-microcosm
of other parts of the world, an ecology with
a strong local identity that has a battle between local and invasive species. It’s a fight
that’s happening all over the planet but
seemed particularly rich and exciting in this
antebellum historical context that seems so
timeless—cypress trees and Spanish moss in
the American South is so distinctive. Besides
the swamp, the first thing I decided was that
the action needed to take place on the ruin
of a nineteenth-century railroad bridge. I
decided to set up the image as a battle image,
only with ecosystems. On the left side, there
are many species of invaders from all over the
world that have a stranglehold—reticulated
python, red imported fire ant and nutria, to
name a few that have put a lot of pressure on
the local fauna. On the right side, we have
many familiar creatures, like the Louisiana
black bear and the American bald eagle and
some less familiar ones like the ringed map
turtle, Florida panther and black capped vireo.
18
JB: In your 1993 series “Biosphere,” you’ve illustrated scenes that are perhaps no longer in the
distant future. What are your thoughts on human
colonization of other planets like Mars and what
it means for Earth-originating species to evolve on
other planets?
AR: The “Biosphere” series from 1992–1994
was inspired by Doug Trumbull’s 1972 movie
Silent Running, which had made a huge impression on me when I saw it as a ten-yearold. In the movie, the earth is so toxic and
overpopulated that the remaining intact
ecosystems are placed in protective geodesic domes and sent into space for their
own good. The crew of the spaceship gets
an order to destroy the domes and go back
to so-called commercial practice. Most of
the crew of the Valley Forge rejoice at the
prospect of going home. The only decent
comes from botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce
Dern), who loves and tends to the forests.
He kills his colleagues, taking the ship deep
into space. Alone on the craft, with his only
SciArt in America December 2014