Artistic Anthropos: Painting an Environmental Commitment

This article is a discussion between literary scholar, Michael Chapman, and ecological artist, Nic Human, on his paintings of endangered sea turtles from the KwaZulu-Natal coast. Human explores the role of art in the Anthropocene debate by focussing on the genre of ecological art as art activism. Select paintings are unpacked that reveal place-based reflexivity while portraying scientific details and visual metaphors. Examples of aesthetic-related terms enter the Anthropocene, such as connective aesthetics, indigenous aesthetics, incidental aesthetics and garbage aesthetics, that directly influence Human’s artworks. The article concludes with current considerations for aestheticising single-species and multi-species conservation as an environmental commitment.