The subject of uneasy contacts between man and nature are a recurring theme in my work. In my current Natural History X series, I imagine how the 21st century might look if memorialized in some alternative natural history museum of the future. Mostly, the dioramas are inhabited not by the accustomed animals, but by humans fleeing some impending threat. Man and nature share a precarious niche in an environment overshadowed by industrial threats and chemical skies. The latter are much in evidence in my Jersey City paintings, featuring the fringe areas, the metaphorical ‘darkness on the edge of town’. Darkness is also the motif enveloping the icebergs drifting ghostly and imperiled through their night season.

pdelman@pingry.org