“We have become accustomed to thinking that man is at the peak of all possible evolution, that Nature is the scenario and we the leading actors,” writes Luis Barbosa in the statement for his work, Verticalmelancholia. In this and his other project, Return, the artist investigates the relationship between nature and man, particularly critical environmental issues. Barbosa’s photographs of the natural world through a ripped “suffocating membrane” symbolize our “cry of urgency for what is natural, an escape to Nature, reframing our own existence.” The images in Return remind me of Rebecca Reeve’s Marjory’s World; both series represent a portal from one realm into the wild and the natural.
More from the artist’s statement for Return: The need for an ecological reasoning becomes essential as the protection of Nature for the following generations turns into Man’s major concern. Human evolution’s unbalanced effects lead to internal revolutions within human condition and nature themselves. We breathe and we see. These processes, being mechanical, are minimized in their own vital importance. In a fast, packed and polluting society, the claustrophobic and blurring effects are amplified, also in attitudes and consciences.
From “Return”
From “Verticalmelancholia”
Visit artist's site: luisbarbosaphotography.com
Posted April 6th, 2016
