MarinaZurkow
Marina Zurkow's art playfully explores Nature in all its conflicted and modified glory. Dealing with a wide range of scales and durations, her animated works combine vector based illustration with computer programming to proffer new potentials for well worn aesthetic strategies. From the oil fields of Texas to the deep sea, her works aim to reconfigure our perception of the landscapes and weather we are immersed in.
These speculative fictions are series based and taxonomical in nature. Marina has developed her own grammar to express the network of native and foreign flora and fauna (including humans) that surround us. Her work "Heraldic crests for invasive species" involved creating coats of arms for a variety of vilified species including Japanese Knotweed, the American Bullfrog and the North American Grey Squirrel. Depicted alongside their friends and enemies, this set of prints fleshes out the realities of living alongside "pest" species.
Animation has brought a repetitive and procedural element to her practice - enabling her to explore deeper ideas through a methodical, repetitive process. "Mesocosm", a software driven animation that unfolds over a 146 hour long cycle, indicates her patience with these computational environments. The colours and curves may seem friendly and cute, but they are nevertheless calm contemplations of an impending catastrophe.
