Five on the First

September 2024
Hannah Antalek

“My work explores an imaginary post-human landscape with roots in science fiction and environmental crisis.

The characters in my work most often take the shape of engorged daisies that appear more mycological than floral, suggesting a means of subterranean communication, and a broader interconnected network. Neighboring plant forms are an amalgamation of real and imagined botanicals that have undergone a hypothetical evolution in reaction to a changing world. Mysteriously backlit in vivid tones, each color cast is evocative of an unknown light source that might insinuate the presence of a second sun, a foreign moon, the heat or chill of a nearby chemical glow.

To capture the tangibility of these thought experiments, I begin my drawings and paintings by first constructing a small diorama model to inform the final piece’s composition and lighting structure. The sculptures I create to populate these fictitious landscapes are made from either compostable and recyclable materials like paper mache, cardboard, and paper, or transform non-recyclable discarded refuse like styrofoam and plastic film into armature for new creations. With each new diorama, elements of previous scenes are repurposed so that each new artwork has a relationship to the last, creating an immersive and expansive alternative world.

Through these speculative scenes, my work questions not only the positive and negative implications of humanity’s impact on nature, but the capacity for adaptation and resilience across all life forms. With humankind’s natural predilection towards fatalism and apocalyptic end-time predictions, these works are a reminder of nature’s cyclical metamorphosis and the seasonality of change.”

CV