ROXY PAINE
Roxy Paine is an American artist, educated at both the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design) in New Mexico and the Pratt Institute in New York. His critically acclaimed body of work ranges from life-size stainless steel trees and boulders to computerized machines that make unique paintings, sculptures, and drawings. Using technology to render and replicate objects found in nature, Paine engages ideas of modern society’s relationship to the environment, and the paradoxes inherent in an increasingly artificial world of objects. Paine is best known for a series of metal tree sculptures known as Dendroids. In the artist’s own words, “I’ve processed the idea of a tree and created a system for its form. I take this organic majestic being and break it down into components and rules. The branches are translated into pipe and rod.”
Paine’s Dendroids, in both appearance and name, reference not only the branches of plant life, but other branching networks, including the dendrites of neurological systems. His work frequently mirrors natural processes and confronts the relationship between the organic and the artificial, and strives to evoke the sense of awe often inspired by nature.