Historically, the relationship between the natural and the anthropic world has always favored Men by making them the active subject of any narrative, and allowing them to absorb from Nature whatever is needed for their egocentric growth. Animals and vegetal forms, then objectified, have gradually lost their own personalities and unique identities, becoming pieces, appendixes, and instances of a “failed” evolutionary process.

Some young artists, having grasped the unique identity of natural forms, are exploring alternative scenarios hidden behind rational logic to unveil the existence of a mystical place in which Nature reclaims its position as protagonist, visually borrowing from Men what makes them “superior”: feelings, intelligence, and behavioral expressions. Showcasing animals, vegetal forms, and humans on a same plane and as co-stars, the group exhibition “Of Other Kin” seeks to invite viewers to get closer to the imaginary and surreal world created by the artists Timothy Bair, Pearl Cowan, Hayley Youngs, and Xiangni Song, and reconsider the relationship of power between Man and other living creatures through the lens of the fantasy and humor.

Drawing inspiration from autobiographical experiences and imagination, the artists sought to arrange destabilizing scenarios to renegotiate a safe space for collective meditation, introspection, and re-orientation within everyday life. For Bair, the hybridization of his persona with animals becomes a way to highlight the similarities, rather than the differences, between Men and other living creatures. By relying on animal symbolism, directly influenced by traditional Oriental illustrations, as a subtle tool to unfold the narrative of his drawings, the artist uses bees to reflect on collective history and his position as a disabled man in society. The narrative of liberation unfolded between the works Study for Self Portrait I (2023) and Firewheel (2023) offers a way to believe in a world where boundaries between species are flexible and interchangeable.

For Song, the distortion of the natural physiological forms constitutes a primary strategy to breach the real and present daily scenes in which animals become protagonists, stealing the show from their human owners. While uncanny humor assumes a central role in her work, being capable of overturning the unbalanced relationship Animals/Humans and allowing animals to mock Men through a parodic exaggeration of their moves and behaviors, it also helps the artist capture the loneliness of menkind like in the work Floor Reach (2022).

In the same way formal distortion and witty humor constitute powerful tools in the art of Song, psychedelic colors and impossible dimensions are crucial in transforming Young’s flowers into actual human beings. Characterized each by a different hyper-saturated color and pattern, Youngs allows orchids to become individuals with independent personalities and characteristics. The organized mysticism ruling the compositions of both Fantastical Orchid (2023) and Big Hug (2023), of a clear Art Nouveau inspiration, which helps suspend the organic forms, and our judgment, into an indefinite realm in between fantasy and reality, is echoed in Cowan’s work, which also assumes a religious allure. Visually merging religious art, Dutch still life, and botanical illustration, Cowan succeeds in elevating plants into new, powerful, and obscure, divinities. If where there used to be a human Saint there is a plant now, the frequent portrayal of mushrooms and flowers in watercolors like both Mushroom Assumption (2023) and Ascending Yellow Amaryllis (2023) also highlights the artist’s interest in constructing scenarios in which the uncomfortable in-between quality of natural forms and animals is acknowledged and normalized.

Simultaneously credible and impossible, the works gathered in “Of Other Kin” allow mysticism to penetrate the normal pace of everyday life and rational mental processes, subverting their order to create a space where imagination rewrites the dynamics regulating creatures and their interactions.