Owen Krzyzaniak Geary

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

“Green Myth Show” (April, 2020)

Digital render

Artist Statement

I work with the belief that all future sexual politics and liberation are predicated on humanity’s relationship to natural resources. My practice uses biodiverse portraiture to respond to the anxious future of Earthly biology. Existing in the era of green capitalism and climate marches, I became frustrated with passive ecoactivism. The subjects of my oil paintings, semi-anthropocentric, synthesize not different political ideologies but different species entirely. Comparing hybridism to queerness, I can question the agency of neoliberal identity politics and destabilize the humanist experience in biology. I utilize a slime-like shade of green in my pictures to mock a kind of “green” branding; the contemporary marketing strategy for eco-conscious products. The resulting collection situates all my subjects in a haze of glowing green, each form emerging from a cloud of biomass particles. My practice also includes mixing my own natural pigments. Because of the extreme health and ecological hazards posed by store-bought oil paint, I developed a mixture of natural products to synthesize my own paints, mediums, and thinners. Participating in the production of materials encourages the innovation that I value in my theoretical outlook and gives my work political agency in the wasteful creative industry. I think of painting as a unique medium for carrying resistance information. Too often art that exists on a screen has to move through an agent of capitalist advertising or media translation. Through challenging humanist and capitalist-driven visual culture, I can project futuristic realities for biodiversity, resource extraction, and general kinmaking.