Brandon Ballengee.

"It's an overused analogy, but the idea of just asking a question through a different lens is so important." — Brandon Ballengée

It is tricky to measure the number of species going extinct each year on our planet—it all depends on how many species of flora and fauna exist, a difficult number to pin down. What most scientists can agree on, however, is that the extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than it would be if people weren't around. While those changes don't appear to impact our everyday lives—the extinction of a little-known tree frog doesn't change how long we wait in line for our morning coffee—the accelerated rate of extinction does hint at the ways in which climate change and other global phenomena will eventually have a significant impact on the way humans live, in terms of habitable landscapes, food supply, water resources, and other crucial areas. It is this looming, possibly catastrophic change that Brandon Ballengée—an artist, biologist and environmental activist—takes as the subject matter for his art.

Ballengée, on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, has been active in the worlds of both art and science since he was a kid. As he explained in a recent interview, "I had a lab in my parents' basement and I had an art studio in our barn.... I was one of those kids who was constantly out catching fish and going in the stream and collecting salamanders and frogs and turtles, and then I'd bring them into the lab, keep them for a while, draw them, and then let them go." As an adult, Ballengée's artworks and scientific research are still very much in sync. Even as he documents mutation and extinction in the amphibian world in the lab, in the studio he creates erasure works (made by manually excising elements from existing works of art) and installations that add emotional resonance to his data.

Recent projects include Malamp, a series focusing on terminally deformed frogs, and Frameworks of Absence, in which species that have gone extinct are excised from antique and vintage prints bearing their likenesses. Ballengée has had solo exhibits at venues such as the National Academy of Sciences, Lousiana's Acadiana Center for Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City, and the Nowhere Gallery in Milan, Italy, just to name a few. Ballengée has also participated in biennales and festivals, including Prospect 2 New Orleans, Biennale for Electronic Arts Perth, the Moscow Biennale, and the Venice Biennale. Ballengée holds a Ph.D. in Ecological Understanding through Transdisciplinary Art and Participatory Biology, and at the School of Visual Arts he teaches science, biology and ecology to art students.

Full article:

https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2015/art-and-science-talk-artist-biologist-brandon-ballengée