Unnatural man

Man vs. nature is certainly not a new concept, but it remains a relevant one. Two artists, Christina Seely and Gretchen Skogerson, explore modern man’s relationship with his environment in Light Matters at the Center for Contemporary Art Sacramento.

Inspired by NASA photos of the artificial light emitted on Earth visible from space, Seely traveled the globe and photographed the inorganic glow of cities from a more terrestrial vantage point. And Skogerson’s video, Drive Thru, which was shown in the Whitney Biennial 2008, shows the aftermath of a natural disaster—Hurricane Ivan in this case—on a manmade habitat. Both artists present the viewer with similar conundrums: the initial beauty of the synthetic and the negative implications man’s hand has on nature.