Eremozoic – Jim Naughten

Digitally manipulated images of animals amongst hyperreal natural environments, Jim Naughten’s work question reality and our relationship to the environment we’re threatening. The fantasy elements to his work come across as cinematic and kinetic, bringing you into a close world which echoes our dark future.

Further press info:

Grove Square Galleries is delighted to announce a forthcoming solo show by photographic artist Jim Naughten, the latest name to join the gallery’s growing roster of contemporary talents. Entitled Eremozoic, the exhibition – the gallery’s first in the photographic medium – will present a new series by Naughten, whose vibrant digital works confront our modern-day disconnection from the environment. The exhibition will run from 7 October to 18 November. Enchanting yet illusory, Naughten’s striking vision aims to highlight the perilous state of the natural word. Trained in both photography and painting, he combines these backgrounds in a practice he refers to as ‘digital painting’, using digital enhancement programmes to conjure worlds that feel familiar yet strange. From orangutans swinging through psychedelic forests, to deer roaming saturated canyons, Naughten’s work explores the idea of the natural world as a faraway fictional fantasy – alerting us to its rapid disappearance and our growing estrangement.

Engaging with biological and scientific theory, Naughten’s most recent work is inspired by E. O. Wilson’s idea that we are living in the Earth’s Eremozoic period: characterised as an age of loneliness following mass extinctions caused by human activity. His images are based on dioramas found in natural history museums all over the world, reimaging these animal forms in defamiliarised contexts and with a heightened colour palette. By creating these new and disorientating perspectives, he encourages us to reflect on themes such as our relationship with wildlife and the future of biodiversity and the planet.

Main image: Jim Naughten, bear, 2021