In his American debut, English born, Australia-based artist, Kit Wise contradicts the notion of the Midwest experience being an Arcadian one in the high definition digital work made specifically for the Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery. The new digital work, Arcadia, addresses global ecological concerns through an invented and always-changing landscape that slowly twists and turns beyond human control.The high definition digital work by English artist Kit Wise addresses global ecological concerns on the Art Center façade with an invented and always-changing landscape.
For the past several years, Kit Wise has been creating large digital collages that often address urban sprawl and the visible pulse of a city. In this new piece, the pulse has returned to nature as the man-made environment gets subsumed by water and earth. Using aerial news footage of the devastation in Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina (2005), as well as the floods in Missouri and Mississippi (2008), this latest animation by Wise presents a complex interaction of urban forms, nature, and landscape. According to Wise, “the work explores ideas of utopia and arcadia in relation to the contemporary city.” Through the work, the artist aims to focus on the tumultuous relationship between water and the metropolis in the light of the recent natural disasters in the Midwest region of the United States, which parallel similar catastrophes in the Asia Pacific region.
