Dennis Ashbaugh

Bio-Gel (aka The Jolly Green Giant), 1990-1

mixed media on canvas, 114 x 120 in.

The year I was born, Barnett Newman painted a work called Genetic Moment in his search for a new beginning for painting. That fact was never lost on me. It is now a question of whether art is leading reality around or reality is leading art around, which seems to matter very little at this point, since time has collapsed so completely on itself.

When I began thinking about making these DNA paintings in 1987, it was apparent to me that we were living in a very, very different world than we were, say, three or five years before. I decided that I would make paintings that would confront the idea that we are about 15 minutes into the future. Since I’ve been making these gene paintings, I don’t know how many hundred thousands of advances and patents have been applied for in various disciplines. Until now we have been shaped by the invisible hand of Darwinian evolution, a process that learns from the past but is blind to the future. In contrast biotechnology threatens to take great strides in envisaging the future. As it does, it becomes increasingly complex and further from the truth.

I’m interested in a variety of the disciplines that have altered or are altering life as we know it. It’s clear biotechnology has reshuffled our concept of time by opening frightening new doors. It’s altered what we eat. It’s altered the face and future of the planet. It’s altered weather. It’s altered warfare and our basic concepts of politics and courtships, so all is fair. Dolly has a mother. It’s pretty hard not to be affected by these facts.