In “Loot Bag”, which appeared at Roq La Rue in Seattle last year, Martin Wittfooth depicts a pelican whose beak overflows with stuff. A doll, a toy elephant, and a pig pop out from the mess as though they are trying to escape. Soda cans, balloons, disposable cups and fast food make up much of the rest of the contents that prop open the pelican’s beak like a kitchen trash can.
“We mass produce a bunch of shit that’s colorful and attractive in a very instinctive way and will only be appreciated for a very short amount of time,” says Wittfooth, by phone. The New York-based artist mentions the way that garbage has littered oceans—”exploding junk,” he says—creating big environmental problems like the famed “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Wittfooth’s pelican recalls images of animals caught in a human-made mess. But that’s only part of what he accomplishes in the painting.
Wittfooth creates another layer of meaning in the image by including toys that resemble animals. “Caricatures of things in nature,” he calls them. They might, he says, prompt people to react with “how cute.” It’s the adorable part of nature without any connection to the natural world itself, a way to find beauty in nature’s animals without interacting with it.
Human relationships with nature inform Wittfooth’s work. His oil paintings feature animals in the starring roles. Humans are absent from the scenes he depicts, but the remnants of their world frequently are not. In “The Aviary,” a cheetah is perched on a cherry tree and joined by a few, scattered birds. They overlook a crumbling, brick wall, catching a glimpse of the city that rises from below.
A similar situation occurs in “Occupy,” where a bull balances on a steel beam above the New York skyline. In “Harvester,” a bear rummages through a basket of flowers, a few pieces of trash lay strewn on the ground in front of him. In “Pieta II,” a tiger lounges on top of a rusted car.
“At one point, I abandoned the human figure altogether,” says Wittfooth, who was featured on the cover of Hi-Fructose in 2011. With animals, the artist can tell a different kind of story. “When you see a painting with a human figure,” he says, “it becomes their story, not your own subjective one.”
Whenever people are faced with natural forces doing what they do, usually the response to that has been with fear.”
