About the Exhibition

Curtis Bartone: Reclamation – exhibition essay by Tracy Wormsbecker

In Reclamation, accomplished American artist Curtis Bartone presents us with a collection of recent works consisting of 18 masterfully executed etchings and lithographs. The works comprise narratives that offer astute and often tense juxtapositions of nature’s flora and fauna with manufactured human artifice. While some works uncover a sense of beauty in this apparent disharmony, a tense and foreboding sense of loss underscores his work, highlighting that wilderness has changed from being a real pristine place to a kind of distorted fiction.Through the works presented in Reclamation, Bartone encourages us to consider difficult questions about our apparent biased and arbitrary classifications of nature that drive our efforts to exert control over it in an attempt to fit the natural world into a human-centered paradigm.

 Formal influences from Italian Renaissance painting, seventeenth century Dutch still life and nineteenth century scientific illustration are evident throughout Bartone’s decadent and detailed works that simultaneously comprise a contemporary aesthetic. Rich in this visual aesthetic, Bartone plays with scale and value, exquisitely rendering his main subjects, which are often chosen for our aversion to them, to paradoxically draw us to each work and to entice a deep engagement with their layered meaning.

 In contrast to Bartone’s natural protagonists, a human presence is implied by destructive manufactured artifices that lurk in the background of the scenes. In a way, Bartone is setting a stage for us to view these scenes from outside our human-centered perspective and there is no doubt that the subjects of each work, their placement within each scene, and their specific pairings are intended to be provocative.

 For example, works such as Strike and Nocturne that juxtapose plants and animals, which we instinctively fear, against backgrounds depicting golf courses and factories, which in reality pose far likelier threats,openly hint at our anthropocentric and somewhat arbitrary prejudices. In the large diptych Ora Et Labora, we may reflect that our actions to control plants and animals are likewise arbitrary and context-dependent.This particular work presents a seemingly clear distinction between “bad,” pesky weeds and animals on the left that humans typically try to restrict, and “good,” beneficial plants and animals on the right that humans typically welcome and encourage. Considering that our perspectives are prone to bias however, closer examination reveals that each assigned value of good and bad can shift depending on the context. For example, while we exterminate pesky rats in homes, they are incredibly valuable and therefore bred for research, and while roses are considered desirable, commercially producing such plants often includes harmful pesticides and herbicides.

 Given the tense and noxious subject matter presented, it seems difficult to imagine regaining a natural harmony and restoring the truly natural places that these works seem to mourn. However, as the title of this show implies, Bartone is suggesting optimism rooted in his belief that “there is a drive to reclaim what we have lost places that are mysterious, unknown,and pristine.”

 Is there hope of reclaiming the harmonious and real wilderness that we have lost to our attempts to control the natural world? Curtis Bartone certainly invites us to take time engaging with such questions presented in this collection of exquisite prints.

About the Artist

Curtis Bartone is represented by Printworks Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.The recipient of several grants, residencies, and awards, his work has been widely exhibited across the United States and internationally, and is included in multiple permanent collections including the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois; and Block Museum of Art,Evanston, Illinois.