The Enduring Allure of Artificial Reality (Blog Review 6)

American artist Jason DeMarte creates fantastical artificial landscapes that tap into an insistence for mass consumption. DeMarte's series Adorned fabricates images of fauna and flora to create perfection, the completion of what the viewer wants, a stickily-sweet production and appeasement. DeMarte's still lives act as late capitalist "memento moris," critiquing the values of a society on the brink of sublime chaos (AI, climate change). I found this work to be particularly interesting as I am working with still lives as my own subject matter and continually incorporate the theme of memento mori in my work. The images I take examine the fleeting of life in another way. While my works are not fabricated in the same way and do not implement blatant iconography and symbolism, they do critique a type of consumption and overindulgence.

Link to the article: https://www.featureshoot.com/2018/10/the-enduring-allure-of-artificial-reality/.