Art: "Late Capitalism"
Michael Kerbow
Artist's Statement:
Early in 2019 I began working on a new series of paintings I call “Late Capitalism”. These works depict the return of the dinosaurs as they overrun our world. They are allegories about the growing threat of fossil fuels and climate change upon our society. The cars and freeways are symbolic of our fossil fuel-based society. The billboards and storefronts represent the underlying driving force of capitalism. And the dinosaurs, now freed by our actions, represent the destructive violence of climate change and the spectre of extinction.
On a more personal level, this series of paintings is nostalgia for my childhood. As a five year-old boy, my two main obsessions were cars and dinosaurs. These things were so cherished in my youth that it was inevitable they would find their way into my artwork. The dinosaurs I portray here may not be up to date with current paleoscience, but they epitomize the look of the illustrations I remember seeing as a boy by classic paleo-artists such as Charles R. Knight, Rudolph Zallinger and Zdeněk Burian.
Michael Kerbow is a San Francisco-based artist who works in a variety of media including painting, drawing, assemblage, and digitally-manipulated photography. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has appeared in multiple publications.