Creator: Paris Kumar
Exhibition: Posthuman Romantics
Published: Feb 2021
Format: Illustration
Content Warning: None
Summary
This pair of paintings reflect on the 1900’s-2000’s view of POC in relation to a post human being. Showing that neither are considered fully human in the time of their life. One being made of flesh but not white, and the other being made of machine and artificial intelligence.
Artist Statement
I enjoyed using the natural colour palette of old romanticism artworks in contrast to a post human subject that has a very unnatural colouration. As well as composition techniques such as the celebration of the individual.
Process & Project Photos
In Conversation with the Curator:
[Jon]
“Your piece shows clear parallels between people of colour and post human beings. Do you feel there are parallels not just in the way people of colour and post human beings have been or will be treated, but also in the way they would receive inspiration as artists?”
[Paris]
I believe that the emotions that come with struggle and being oppressed are truly unique, especially when it comes to art they are very hard to recreate. If you take a depressed artist for example, a depressed painter and you compare that to someone who’s painting and very uninspired. The depressed painter’s gonna have way more emotional charge in their art. Or even if you take black rappers from the 90’s and some rap music now, I feel like the rap in the 90’s every lyric has a meaning and some rap now has way less emotion and meaning than it used to. So even if you take for instance the natural world, animals like zebras or giraffes, they all have such nice designs on them. Such beautiful stripes on them, and that only comes from the struggle of having to survive every day and having to camouflage into their environment. Having the struggle of day to day life. And so I believe that oppression and struggle really creates a really beautiful and natural form of art. And unless a post human being was going through similar oppression or a similar struggle, I don’t think that they could truly create, they might be able to kind of emulate, but I don’t think that they would be able to recreate that type of emotion and message in their art.
I also believe that in societies or even the natural world with animals there’s always the ones on top and always the outcasts. So I believe that if a post human society had “the ones on top” and “the outcasts” that they could definitely go through some day to day struggle that would lead them to creating some art, that could inspire some art. Lead to similar art that we have today.