Savage Arcadia

---

Humankind walks a narrow road with respect to nature.  We need nature to live, but nature is not a loving parent.  It is literally inhuman.  Cruel, merciless and indifferent.  Everything we get from nature must be wrestled from it.  Civilization is a defense against nature’s caprices, but it is fragile, and underneath it the reality of nature remains.  These paintings, by focusing on the figure, emphasize the human response to this condition.  Human beings cannot defeat nature  (we should not even wish to) and we cannot hide from nature, since nature will always find us.  Instead, like the figures in these paintings, we must confront the world with resolve - a stoic determination in the face of adversity.  Though danger is all around us (sometimes obvious, sometimes more hidden), and though the situation could turn for the worse at any moment, we must venture forth regardless.  There is something ennobling about this view of humanity.  We do not shrink and cower; we advance in spite of everything.