Steven Kenny
Artist Statement
We humans are inclined to forget or ignore the principles of existence. They include: every action directly impacts our environment, change is unavoidable, stasis is unnatural, time is beyond our influence, conception is the commencement of death as well as life, and many others. Our challenge is to humbly accept Nature’s gifts and live by the lessons set before us without imposing our arrogant will upon each other and the planet.
As humans more fully embrace technology, we feel an increasing sense of anxiety, disorientation and fear. To compensate, our desire for predictability and order ignites a voracious hunger for control that induces us to force Nature to relinquish her secrets. Once a trusted provider, she is now viewed as “shifty”, inadequate, and needing improvement. We manipulate our surroundings in an attempt to manage time, eliminate unforeseen change, and establish a permanent sense of stability. We go to great lengths to surround ourselves with psychological, physical, spiritual, social, and cultural environments that we hope will last. The result is an increasingly artificial existence.
By combining detailed realism, surrealism, and symbolism, I convey the universal language of Nature as I understand it. I visually combine the human figure, plants, animals, and all other forms of matter in natural tableaux vivants. These scenarios present our existence as either environmentally harmonious or complicated by human contrivances. My paintings serve as a reminder to myself, and perhaps to others, that all life on Earth is but a single organism. The world I depict is one where interdependencies prosper and hierarchies crumble.
Steven Kenny at Glass Garage Fine Art Gallery
I'll impose my arrogant will where I please, thank you. Love your paintings, but your statement is cheese.
In what sense do your paintings convey the universal language of Nature more than a McDonald's franchise or a soldier killing someone or a cat barfing up a hair ball?
Interdependencies crumble every bit as much as hierarchies, which are also interdependencies.
Something I love about art is how absurd it is to think anyone could get what the artist believes he or she is putting forth, even when relying on common memetic structures as themes or inspiration. Art is a reflection, a regurgitation of the World. Words about art are a regurgitation of a regurgitation – there's too much interpretation for a satisfying degree of fidelity. When a reader gets to that regurgitated regurgitation, there is yet another interpretative filter. It's at least a nice opportunity for dialogue.
The artist choses his/her message and puts it out there for us to see, whether or not the viewer gets the interpretation is entirely up to the viewer. And to criticize the artist in such a high-handed manner is utterly ridiculous and shallow. I think your arrogant will has blinded you to anything else but your own narrow minded views. I am no expert in art but I can see what the artist is trying to say here and I don't see anything cheesy about it.