Want to hear from us occasionally? Subscribe to our newsletter
Kirsten Aaboe
Twentynine Palms, CA, US
Instagram:
A Tiny Ascension
digital photomontage
What happened to this little bird was completely beyond my control. How I see my role as caretaker of what is in my world requires gentleness, understanding, kinship, and awareness beyond my own immediate desires. How I connect with my world requires the application of the determination to cherish life in all its forms.
2021
- Kirsten Aaboe
We Are Part of the Earth?
Multimedia: photographs photoshopped digitally
Those opposable thumbs, relatively big brains, and hairless vulnerability have produced a voracious predator, wreaking havoc on the intricate, interwoven, exquisitely interlaced web of the natural world, formerly untrammeled by human boots. This blind egoism is unsustainable and will drive itself into the ground - literally.
The piece is a visualization of the phasing out of humans, along with only some of the other affected animals. The earth will survive, and will regenerate, since life springs from cracks in the concrete.
2021
- Kirsten Aaboe
Untitled
Manipulated digital photograph
My understanding of my complicity, due to ignorance of the connectedness of my actions and their consequences, as well as my desire for convenience, my laziness, privilege, and self-importance, has grown over time.
I made this piece after wandering in the wonderful surroundings, the wonderfields, of 29 Palms at the Desert Dairy while at an artist residency there. I took many photographs while it was cool in the mornings, and when it was too hot to be outside in the 100+ degree heat, I worked on manipulating the photos. This is a digital photo, existing in my iCloud, and may not be printed – I’m not sure about doing that.
I am convinced, as a great many artists are, that our efforts must be more fervently directed to seeing both upstream (before we take action, especially to consume resources) and downstream (what happens after we do take those actions; what do we discard, leave behind)….seeing but also developing work with this awareness.
2021
- Kirsten Aaboe
Hold Everything
Multimedia digital photo collage
The headlong pursuit I’ve been stuck in, of acquiring, using, and then discarding, in an endless cycle, reinforces my mono-directional thinking and assumptions based on individual rights to the exclusion of how my actions fit into the whole systems we’re all part of. If I ratchet back my actions, take hard looks at my ‘needs’ and ‘desires,’ I find there is exquisite beauty all around me.
Hold Everything is a portrait of a very small moth I found on my studio floor. Cherishing means I won’t destroy as much.
2021
- Kirsten Aaboe
Fading into the Mist? Really?
Oil and carbon ink on pellon 18”x20”
This image depicts a confused-looking man, sitting on an insubstantial cloud, looking backward, flummoxed, and unaware of the precarious position he is in.
2020
- Kirsten Aaboe