K I N N E Y C E N T E R F O R I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A R Y R E N A I S S A N C E S T U D I E S APOCALYPSE: SCIENCE & MYTH B Y S U Z E T T E M A R I E M A R T I N S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 A R E N A I S S A N C E O F T H E E A R T H E X H I B I T
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
In Apocalypse: Science & Myth, painter Suzette Martin offers viewers an allegory of consequences for industrialized humanity’s cumulative, destructive behaviors, by layering data from climate and environmental research with the Biblical tale of banishment from paradise. This exhibit returns to past stories of apocalypse to highlight our current eco-anxieties. Positioned in gestures of anguish, Adam and Eve struggle within landscapes overlaid with partially legible scientific diagrams and data that document anthropogenic causes of ecological crises. Passages from Genesis 3 in the 1495 Vulgate Bible in the Center's collection evoke an ancient story of divine punishment for humanity’s forbidden knowledge of good and evil.
Myths about a lost golden age, apocalypse, or the cyclical destruction of the world appear across multiple cultures worldwide. This exhibit focuses on the Genesis myth of humanity’s banishment from paradise as a backdrop to industrialized western civilization, where the development of fossil-fueled industrialization, settler colonialism, and an extractive, commodity-based relationship to nature have led to escalating environmental disasters across the globe.
Martin’s figurative works employ two key components of Renaissance art and philosophy: the embodiment of myth through classical nude figures and the objective observation of natural phenomena. The Mannerist body language of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, as well as Masaccio’s fresco
“The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden” in the Brancacci Chapel, are reference points for figures in these large scale figurative works that embody contemporary eco-anxiety. The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations.” Martin’s imagery of contemporary
"data overload,” use of theatrical gesture, expressionistic mark-making, and scientific data bear witness to the psychological consequences of environmental collapse.
The non-figurative works in this exhibit are inspired by the notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci. Martin’s deployment of handwritten script focuses on scientific inquiry, while the merger of observation and imagination across the same image explores the interplay between science and myth. Martin combines 21st century environmental science graphics and reports with illustrations and texts from the Kinney Center's rare book library in a visual exploration of the evolution of humanist approaches to knowledge, from theological speculations on the nature of the universe to early scientific methodologies grounded in both observed and measurable data.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Suzette Marie Martin is a figurative painter based in New England. She uses allusions to mythology and the narrative potential of body language, combined with data, symbols and text, to confront the existential trauma of ecological decline and intensifying climate crises. Martin’s archetypal figures, enmeshed within layers of scientific documentation, embody gestures of emotional and physical distress, and acknowledge the cognitive anxiety of information overload. Martin's practice, rooted in drawing and developed in series, is informed by topical research, observational studies and art historical reference. Layers of gestural marks, opaque passages and translucent washes reveal Martin’s working process of describing and obscuring elements of figuration, text and abstraction
RENAISSANCE OFTHEEARTH
The Renaissance of the Earth revolutionizes what it means to think with the early modern past about our environmental future. Through a range of crossdisciplinary collaborative models, it puts students, artists, and scholars at the center of an interdisciplinary research mandate with the goal of discovering diverse avenues for creating sustainable and equitable life.
