Looking for something?

Tap outside or press close

Scott Listfield's new series imagines an apocalyptic future where animals have outlasted us

"I've been watching a lot of David Attenborough lately. You know, Planet Earth, Life, Blue Planet, and other BBC nature specials," says Scott Listfield, an artist we've featured previously.

Written By:
Via Creative Boom submission. All images courtesy of and copyright of Scott Listfield

Via Creative Boom submission. All images courtesy of and copyright of Scott Listfield

"The more I watch them, the more I feel a connection to the animals I see on screen. And yet in my day-to-day life, I rarely interact with nature, other than the occasional spider, the less occasional squirrel, and my dog, who has a taste for Whole Foods salmon and might be even less at home in the outdoors than I am.

"In other words, I have almost no real connection to nature, and especially to the wild animals I've been growing increasingly attached to on television. I fear that much of this world is going to disappear in my lifetime, and yet I'm just sitting on my couch eating chips."

Here lies the sentiment behind Scott's latest series, Migration, on show at the Antler Gallery in Portland, Oregon from 25 October. (Artist Josie Morway will be also exhibiting.)

"Of course, I'm an artist, not an environmentalist. So while I don't know exactly what to do about this feeling of being disconnected from the natural world, I do know how to paint about it," he adds.

"In this latest series, my astronaut explores a world where animals have, unsurprisingly, outlasted us. They wander a wilderness filled with our debris, each of them under a mysterious shape, which might be magical or might be technological in nature."

Astronaut in spacesuit viewing a weathered Welcome to Oregon sign topped with a snow leopard beneath a yellow diamond shape in a vast desert landscape
An astronaut in a helmet gazes up at a snow leopard standing on a cow, with a glowing geometric shape above against a New York City skyline
Astronaut in white spacesuit faces a panda bear on a beach beside a rock formation with a blue-green circle, with a modern building visible in the background
An astronaut stands on a bridge looking up at a lemur leaping through a glowing geometric shape against a blue sky
Astronaut in grey jacket viewing a massive rhinoceros in a desolate landscape beneath a blue-green geometric shape floating in the sky
Share