Artist 319
Pim Palsgraaf
The fragility of existence
Mixed media
Pim Palsgraaf (born 1979) is a Netherlands artist who is inspired by the decay and irregularities within cities. His studio is located in the industrial section of Rotterdam.
He creates sculptures that shows the outgrowths of urban architecture. It can be comparable to tumors of urban growing. Through art he explores the discord between nature and urbanity are relevant topics and perspectives in meta-modernistic thinking.
Palsgraaf’s work is a result of an ever-deepening investigation into the erosion of the inner city.
He drapes found objects on taxidermy animals to symbolize the contrary of culture and nature. His paintings reveal a clandestine interior of cities. By portraying deserted rooms, damp corridors and damaged ceilings in danger to collapsing he show his weakness for urban decline. That the natural environment of men slowly sinking into oblivion.
Palsgraaf is known for regularly roaming and working with other artists in the ruins of Industrial Giants.
Palsgraaf further investigates how people construct their world around themselves. This often leads to dualisms in society. Nihilism and consumerism are side by side and irony and naive informality live simultaneously. They co-exist in a chaos.
In his sculpture series the invasive qualities of the growths is apparent in his embedding of cityscapes into taxidermic animals. In this series, the often combative relationship between nature and culture is explored and even questioned by viewer as the tumorous city seems to overcome the animal and bring it to its knees.
Through out Palsgraaf’s art there is a warning of how the environments of men are slowly being reclaimed by nature.
Looking at his work I am captivated by the notion that when we look at the colonies and architecture of insects we marvel at the beauty of their creations yet are so harsh towards our own. Palsgraaf’s work echo a hauntingly true statement our creations and our civilizations are not immortal.
And yet Pim Palsgraaf critiques this existence by creating his own cities and preserves nature through his taxidermy. This duality really plays in my mind in some ways his art reads to me as almost a dark love letter and also a warning.
#artistsoninstagram #artresearcher #celebratingart #investigatingart #blog #artist #art #contemporaryart #artistbio #arthistory #artresearch #contemporary #learning #artblog #artistoftheday #PimPalsgraaf #taxidermy #sculpture #installationart #cities #urban #netherlands #netherlandsartist #multiversesculpture
Sources Consulted
