Roxy Paine’s work addresses complex issues involving human interactions with nature and with machines. As an artist, Paine has an incredible grasp of a concept that he describes as the language of systems, which he applies to computer programs, physics, science, chemistry, and botany and then translates into art. After growing up in Virginia, dropping out of high school at 15, getting a GED, and attending various art schools including Pratt, Paine helped to start Brand Name Damages, a first-generation gallery in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in 1989. Since then, he has invented complex sculptures and installations that address plant morphology, machines that create unique artworks, an erosion machine, and other systems that spotlight interactions among machines, the natural world, and humans. Paine has shown at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and at the Ronald Feldman and James Cohan galleries in New York. His work will be featured at New York’s Madison Square Park in 2007.
