Peter Naktin
Kudzu Garden
Oil on panel, 21.5 x 11”, 2020.
Kudzu Garden consists of a composite view of various landscapes, witnessed briefly during a walk or from the window of a moving car. The landscape loosely resembles a green hill, which is in fact blanketed with curtains of Pueraria montana, an invasive plant species from East Asia. I intended to examine how increasing incursions from invasive species impacted our landscape, and I wanted to suggest a discontinuity of time and space to allude to the widespread nature of the vine. I am very interested in how we register and process alterations to the surrounding environment, which are continuously going on in the background whether we realize it or not. My practice intends to examine our relationships to environmental degradation and change, using markers like invasive species and landscape alterations as indicators for our collective awareness of such processes.
Peter Naktin is an artist currently living in Philadelphia, PA. He is studying to obtain his BFA in Painting at Tyler School of Art and Architecture as well as a BA in Biology at Temple University’s College of Science and Technology. Naktin seeks to illuminate, inform, and revitalize human perceptions of the natural world by filtering experiences of the built world through painting. In his art, Naktin investigates the physically and socially constructed narratives around human interactions with the wider processes of the planet. He intends to enroll in a graduate program for Medical Illustration after graduating from Tyler, where he can more fully illuminate the scientific through a visual arts language.