Alexis Rockman

Alexis Rockman's Bioluminescence project visualizes these deep sea creaturesand also imagines their interactions within this ecosystem. Painted with gouacheon black paper, these works developed out of his visual concept art for the film"Life of Pi".

Bioluminescence

Stephen Jay Gould

David Quammen

Jonathan Crary

At the intersection of science and art, documentary and fantasy, the beautiful and the grotesque lies the work of Alexis Rockman, whose meticulously rendered paintings fascinate, amuse, and alarm -- often simultaneously -- as they explore the relationship between humanity and nature. A native New Yorker who frequented the American Museum of Natural History as a boy, Rockman is inspired by botanical and zoological illustrations, as well as early-twentieth-century murals and dioramas. Yet his work goes beyond those genres to portray, with dark humor, a variety of mutated and mutant animals (such as square cows and featherless chickens), interspecies couplings, and macabre visions of a future world. This richly illustrated volume is the first to offer a comprehensive overview of Rockman's oeuvre, from his early works, such as the fascinating yet disquieting Aviary, in which birds perch against a blood-red sky, to his more recent Expedition series, inspired by the artist's field studies in the rain forests of Brazil and Guyana. Important large-scale works, such as A Recent History of the World and Evolution, are reproduced as dramatic fold-out pages. Complementing the visual documentation of Rockman's work is commentary by the artist himself. Three incisive essays further elucidate the scientific and artistic influences on Rockman's art and show how, at the same time, he has broken with those traditions to create a unique, powerful, and at times haunting vision of the collision between humankind and the natural world.

New Mexico Field Drawings is the outcome of a 2017 residency by New York-based artist Alexis Rockman (born 1962) at SITE Santa Fe, and accompanies a 2017-18 presentation of the work at SITE Santa Fe.

Alexis Rockman: New Mexico Field Drawings

The shipwreck narrative is used to explore globalization, colonization and climate change in the masterful works of contemporary American painter Alexis Rockman In Shipwrecks, Alexis Rockman (born 1962) looks at the world's waterways as a network by which all of history has traveled. The transport of language, culture, art, architecture, cuisine, religion, disease and warfare can all be traced along the routes of seafaring vessels dating back to and in some cases predating the earliest recorded civilizations. Through depictions of historic and obscure shipwrecks and their lost cargoes, Rockman addresses the impact--both factual and extrapolated--the migration of goods, people, plants and animals has on the planet. This timely publication, which includes essays from leading scholars, is propelled by impending climate disaster and the current largest human migration in history, taking place in part by waterway.

Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks

Mark Dion

A Pop Media Investigation of Death and Survival in Urban Ecosystems. An exploration into the results of what happens when urban and human environments intersect with each other.

Alexis Rockman

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