Nick Pedersen: Slow Apocalypse

We stumble forward in hopeful chaos, trusting that the light on the horizon is the dawn and not the twilight.” – E.O. Wilson

Through an intricate combination of photography, digital collage, and printmaking, Nick Pedersen’s work explores environmental issues of the Anthropocene, an age of human impact on the natural world. With carbon emissions reaching levels not seen in 15 million years, the earth is currently on course towards a tipping point where modern civilization could become unsustainable. From climate change and more extreme weather events to loss of habitat, biodiversity, and species extinctions, our planet is quickly approaching a strange and unpredictable future. Pedersen’s work visually depicts this modern conflict between the natural world and the man made world, creating elaborate, photorealistic images that reveal a satirically dystopian vision of the not-too-distant future. He portrays this as an epic struggle and in his work these forces clash in theatrical, post-apocalyptic battlegrounds.

With this body of work, Pedersen has created a series of artistic explorations into the scientific concept of the ‘environmental uncanny’. This is a term referring to the collective denial of humanity going about business as usual in the face of these slow moving processes and unalterable changes to the world. In response, Pedersen’s work plays off of older forms of beauty in art making, referencing sublime landscape paintings, animal studies and still lifes, fanciful wallpaper, and textiles. His images appropriate these picturesque styles and idealized nature imagery to create elaborate juxtapositions with subversive elements from modern civilization. This exhibition focuses on concepts like the reclamation of nature and rewilding the modern world, creating a contemplative series of apocalyptic pieces that question the legacy modern humanity will be handing down to future generations.