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Lake Victoria- Natura Saltans |
Chris Augusta
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| 2010 |
Waldoboro, ME |
| Oil on panel 48 x 96" |
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"As for the celebrated 'struggle for existence'" Friedrich Nietzche wrote
in the 1880's, "it seems to me for the present to have been rather asserted
than proved. It does occur, but as the exception, the general aspect of
life is not hunger and distress, but rather wealth and luxury, even absurd
prodigality"
My own experiences as an artist--and in particular my experiences drawing
and studying the life forms in and around Lake Victoria in East Africa--confirm Nietzsche's observations. Nature is not static nor parsimonious,
but wild, wasteful, exuberent, in a perpetual process of overcoming itself.
Like a scientist, I'm concerned with understanding and observing nature.
Unlike a scientist, I'm not limited to a methodology that tends to
seperate me from what I observe and experience. I can experience myself
as a force of nature and this may result in a kind of knowledge unavailable
to the scientist. A work of art is created by processes that are neither
random nor determined and the artist may understand himself, not as
dispassionate observer of nature, but as participant.
Science Art Note: Lake Victoria, during its short 12,500-year history, is thought to have “sired” 200 species—a truly exuberant process, as Augusta notes. Sadly, however, this center of fish speciation is at significant risk, threatened by the introduction of two non-endemic fish, one a predatory perch and the other a competing herbivorous tilapia, by oxygen-depleting pollution that is turning the lake bottom into a dead zone, and by algae levels five to ten times higher than it was 50 years ago, which is reducing visibility and, when die-offs occur, adds to the pollution problem.
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