Distillation

Roxy Paine

Guzman: What I liked about Maelstrom was that while you got very drawn into what the piece was doing to the actual roof of the MET, it was also set against the irresistible background of Central Park.

Paine: Yes and the treetops, but then it was also surrounded by a canyon of buildings. Getting back to the idea of purity, I’m not interested in a romantic idea of nature existing in a “pure natural setting.” I’m more interested in the collision, in how everything is jumbled together. Another way of looking at this piece is as a conflagration of discrete systems. You have the arboreal, which is the tree, you have the industrial systems, which is the pipe work and valves, you have the neural systems represented by the neurons, you have the mycological, represented by the mushroom forms, and you have the vascular system which is representative of the body. Each of these systems also represents a distinct way that the world is framed, that we frame the world, that we try and understand the world.

Guzman, Alissa. “Interview with Roxy Paine,” WhiteHot Magazine, November 2010.

To view more of Roxy Paine’s work visit James Cohan Gallery

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