Artist Statement

CURTIS is an artist animal figuring out how to eat, sleep, shit, and reproduce within the Anthropocene. They are exploring these activities at the fluctuating intersections of what we call nature and culture. These explorations might take place at a campsite under a freeway, next to a fake rock at the zoo, or in the taxidermized eye of a buffalo head on the wall of a dive bar. They argue that the word ‘natural’ is meaningless when our relationship to non-human life has become so obscured by human dominance. Similarly, “culture” has become a vague term used to encompass all human activities which make us feel superior or unique. 

Through their art practice, CURTIS explodes moments of nature and culture confusion. They merge human and non-human bodies through violent and sexual acts that ask us to rethink our position and power within the supposed hierarchy of living things. When someone interacts with their work, the viewer becomes uncomfortably aware of their body. Their animal body, that breathes, sweats, bleeds, fucks, eats, shits, and dies, just like all other animal bodies. Through this realization of our fragility, we can begin to truly collaborate with the inhabitants of our planet, and our collective experience can merge into action. Their work exposes the superficial “culture camouflage” of money, cities, the internet, laws, etc. that have given us the illusion of uniqueness. Their work invents wild technology that equalizes our unequal bodies. Their work proposes an acceptance of our animal reality, and an end to our futile, and often destructive attempts at control.

Contact: contact.curtis.art@gmail.com