MARKUS HAALA - NATURE MORTE
03/23/22 - 04/20/22
Mills Gallery at Central College
812 University St.
Pella, IA 50219
Link to Exhibition Announcement
What is nature and what is natural? These questions become progressively harder to answer as the impact of human intervention on the ecosphere expands. Concepts of how we outline, perceive and shape theories of the natural and the artificial, the organic and the synthetic, are central inspirations for artist Markus Haala’s creative practice and research.
Fascinated by the ways how we are shaping the world through augmented technologies and inspired by contemporary environmental studies and concepts such as Hypernature, Haala frequently resorts to new media fabrication methods and the integration of industrial resources that are part of the ongoing modification of the natural world to explore new definitions of nature originating from the Anthropocene, the geological age in which humanity itself has become the foremost influence on the environment.
Borrowed from French nature morte [na.tyʁ mɔʁt], the title of Haala’s show literally translates to dead nature. Known in the English language as still life, it references work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter and conventional objects which are either natural or man-made.
Please click on the links below to watch the video work presented in this exhibition:
La Pastorale Synthétique (2021)
Lavender Tide (2021)
Elegy for Summertime (2021)