Nate Cassie, Trickster and Follower, 2020

In words of the artist, "'Trickster and Follower' is two bottles that contain news stories read from early March. Trickster is informed by an old idea in many cultures of a minor deity who sometimes shows an alternate path. Picasso made several paintings of harlequin characters in his early career and I was reading a lot about that moment when I made these. I was also reading a book by the naturalist Barry Lopez describing his adventures and in particular a passage about talismans one of his being a shell from Cardita Megastropha clam which constantly evolves due to chemical and physical changes in the water creating chevron pattern that varies across the shell.
Each shell is a reminder of the astonishing and unpredictable range of individual expression within a species. In his essay, he compares this to a visitation to the terracotta Army in China recognizing that diversity is an inescapable component of every successful attempt to establish order."

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Nate Cassie American, b. 1970

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