An Osteoborg is a sort of bone-robot. This one has been evolving for a very long time, and has no memory of its origin. Its integrated into its environment and is perhaps gestating new copies of itself as nodules on its legs.

OsteoBorg 1

How would a landscape feel if it were occupied by something not made by or for humans, something existing without regard to our sentiments?  The graphite drawing Phyto Ost 2 combines concepts from exobiology, artificial evolution, technology-infused ecosystems and mathematics to create an unearthly or distant-future plant-like form situated in an otherwise lifeless landscape.  The drawing is part of a series of hand-drawn images that explore non-anthropoid and feral-technology-infused entities and ecosystems.  A further goal of these works is to stimulate emotions or experiences associated with viewing objects of unknown origin, with no name, and with no overtly human connection.  Phyto Ost 2 also contains elements of surrealism, photo-realism, and landscape rendering and juxtaposes the concepts of subject and background by including a high level of detail throughout the rendering.

Phyto Ost 2

This surrealistic depiction of a micro/macro-scale world shows a conglomeration of machine and geometric components joined together in an organic way to create a creature or bio-machine of some kind.  The work combines scale and conceptual contrasts to produce an irreal or alien space.   The work could be viewed as a sort of micro-scale machine, or alternatively as a large perhaps floating structure of some kind.  This geometric bio-machine finds itself in an Osteo Playa landscape.  Osteo-Playa means something like bone desert or plain of bone material. The landscape also reflects a macro-micro scale dichotomy, showing distance but also a bone-like microstructure.

Osteoplayaborg 1

This drawing exemplifies a bio-technological fusion creature to be found in the distant future long after the time of humans has long past.  An Osteoborg is a sort of bone-robot, a surreal machine.  The upper portion of this creature is a sort of irregular mass of cubes composed of a bone-like material, while the lower portion is a conglomeration of robot or zooborg (animal-machine) parts.

OsteoBorg 3

Phyto Ost 3 is a quazi-surrealistic rendering of three tree-like forms growing out of an arid dried-mud playa.  The trees have orb-like crowns composed of filamentous boney cubes, hence the name Phyto Ost or Bone Plant.  These trees might be alive or they might be only skeletons of wood and bone, the last traces of life on an aging planet. 

This work was awarded Best in Show in a recent Gallery Ring show (May 2021), and was awarded 1st place fine arts division at the 2019 University of Arizona LPL Show.

Hand-drawn graphite on Bristol

Phyto Ost 3

Phytotessellost, 2020.   This graphite drawing show a three-lobed tree-like form with the lobes being composed of or tiled with regular triangles, squares, pentagons and hexagons.  These are randomly place in a quasi-Gaussian distribution, and further detailed as being formed of fused organic tubes or rods.

The drawing was done entirely by hand with graphite on Bristol board. Calculations transforms and planar projections were done by hand or using slide rules and/or various other analog techniques.

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Andrew Lincoln Nelson

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