Rapid Evolution (2023-2024)
2024
Artist Statement: “Rapid Evolution” investigates the liminal space our natural world occupies on the eve of this sixth mass extinction. The work reflects on the deep interconnections between humanity (as a technological force), humans (as animals), and nature, capturing the ways resilience and adaptation emerge in the face of upheaval. As biomes across the world collapse, evolutionary processes that often take millennia are occurring on the order of decades. Snails are shifting their shell colors from dark browns to pinks and yellows to absorb less heat from the sun, and mostly-white tawny owls are becoming “tawnier,” blending into habitats now devoid of snow. New hypotheses emerge. The series questions the boundaries between material and immaterial, natural and synthetic, presence and absence, drawing inspiration from evolutionary patterns and the fluidity of intelligence across species and systems.
Critical Response:
So much of the power in visionary art comes from an understanding of how the forces of nature, humanity, science, geology, feminine energy, fractal evolution, macro-micro vibrations, sacred geometry, emotion, chaos, and balance all intersect, balance, and can be cultivated. Dr. Kim Farbota—an actual neuroscientist and also an environmental lawyer—uses not only her professional practice but her intuitive painting studio practice as well, to explore the effects of climate chaos on the human psyche. The question before us—and perhaps the esoteric, paradoxical, expansive world of visual art really is the best way to ask it—is whether we succumb to the fear, or instead embrace this fraught moment as the opportunity for meaningful, radical realignment that it offers.
-Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Press Association Critic of the Year 2024, on “Rapid Evolution” for 13ThingsLA
"Cambria," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 48" x 48" // Inspired by fern spikes following mass extinction events, the Hindu goddess Kali, and the Cambrian explosion.
"Dirty Flight," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 48" x 24" // Inspired rapid evolution of the tawny owl, whose feathers have changed from light gray to brown in just four decades, enabling camouflage in environments now devoid of snow. [Hypothesis: Rapid evolution must rely on reversion to previously expressed traits; differs from classical conceptualization of evolution driven by spontaneous heritable mutation.]
"Air Cast," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 48" x 24" // Inspired by genetic studies of the European great tit. [Hypothesis: On average, organisms with larger genomes will evolve more rapidly in response to environmental stress--genome size as a predictor of genetic agility and rapid evolution capacity.]
"Earth Bound," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 48" x 48" // Inspired by studies of mediterranean thyme, which has rapidly evolved to express oils on the outside of the plant, protecting against soil salinated by sea level rise. [Hypothesis: Phylogenetically older creatures will evolve more effectively in response to environmental stress; proven track record of success in prior climate shifts predicts future success.]
"(R)evolution," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 20" x 20" // Inspired by studies of land snails that have rapidly evolved to shift their shell colors from dark browns to pinks and yellows, absorbing less heat from the sun in a warming climate. [Hypothesis: Unexpressed, or even "junk," DNA contains, inter alia, a library of possible adaptations; dormant trait codes conserved from prior evolutionary iterations.]
"Hive Mind," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 18" x 22" // Inspired by mitochondrial gene expression shifts enabling honey bees to overcome the threat of parasites predicted to wipe out the species. [Hypothesis: Rarely studied mitochondrial DNA expression also plays a role in rapid evolution capacity in other species.]
"Mind Flight," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 20" x 24" // Inspired by studies of rapidly evolving, neurologically encoded group dynamics, flight patterns, and breeding timing in migratory bird species in response to climate change. [Hypothesis: Species-level behavioral shifts driven by reward-based feedback loops enable rapid shifts in gene expression, securing new instinct heritability.]
"Upstream," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 48" x 24" // Inspired by rapid evolution of salmon species whose genetically encoded migration timing has shifted to adapt to earlier springs. Hypothesis: Encoded genetic agility is more prevalent than we might expect--dormant "on/off" switches enabling long-term survival.
"Human Nature," acrylic on gallery profile canvas, 20" x 30" // Inspired by rapid speciation of coral reefs in Moorea spawning new specimens resistant to heat and acidity. Human scientists are attempting to replicate these adaptations in other reefs. Man is both an inextricable part of nature and actively working to guide it.