The work of Portland-based artist Josh Keyes is unique and eerily fascinating. His paintings bring animals into a human landscape, perhaps after being driven out of their native habitat. However this landscape isn’t a fairy tale, it’s gritty and futuristic. In this future it feels as though the humans have abandoned the cities and left the creatures to fend for themselves, to adapt in this foreign landscape. Some biographical text from his website:

Alternately passionate and playful, outraged and absurd, the artwork of Josh Keyes is memorable both for its resonant imagery and the haunting themes those images convey. Vividly imagined and exquisitely realized, his work is at once highly personal and very much of its time. While it spans a variety of approaches, Keyes’ overall subject matter remains consistent, evincing a fascination with the intersection of the animal realm and the built human landscape, and the imperiled role of wilderness in a rapidly changing global environment.

Perhaps these pictures aren’t really all about animals but about the conflict between nature and society within our own human consciousness. Keyes’ images, in their way, suggest that the division between an intricately self-absorbed society and the connection to nature within us is an artificial one that can no longer be sustained. One can read his work as a plea to let the natural collective consciousness within us emerge, to find a balance within ourselves that contains a place for the other creatures of this planet, with whom we are more connected and co-dependent than we may care to admit.

Keyes’ artworks are neither optimistic nor nihilistic. If anything, they seem to hover between fear and fury, between sorrow and acceptance. But they do contain a level of urgency, addressing such exigent issues as the extinction of species and the emergence of a new global topography. In grafting a dreamlike pictorial language to a passionate ecological concern, he has not only carved out a fertile chunk of postmodern art world territory, but found his own bully pulpit, and catharsis.

I was going through some photo albums and realized I have tons of project photos that I have yet to post. The first, the ecoroof atop the Ladd apartment tower, a LEED certified Gold building in downtown Portland. The tower offers residents an amenity level which includes an outdoor roof deck with patio seating, raised planting beds and 6,650 square feet of native plantings, including an eco roof. The Ladd has eco roofs on the 4th, 5th and the 24th floor.

The 2,500+ plants used to cover the eco roof itself is an mix of six different sedums: Sedum sexangulare, Sedum spurium “Summer Glory”, Sedum spurium “Roseum”, Sedum oreganum, Sedum album. The plants are planted in one big random mixture, mat style, in a minimum of 4 inches of soil and 8 inches on center. The entire eco roof assembly is from American Hydrotech.

Contrary to popular belief that the Pacific Northwest is continuously raining, Portland actually gets pretty extensive dry summers. This means an irrigation system is a must to get the plants safely through this yearly drought. The typical American Hydrotech “egg crate” drainage mat helps to capture rain for continued use by the vegetation but when there’s no rain to capture and hold onto, the permanent drip-line irrigation system kicks in and waters according to the weather during these extreme dry periods.

After a weekend that left me fairly drained of energy, I found myself staring for far too long at my potted plant…highly amused at the thought of it as a little tiny park that I could look down on. I figured somewhere out there someone must have thought of this as a product…sure enough, Tristan Zimmermann has done just that. His Park Planters choose to explore, however, the darker side of the urban park, the side that comes out when the sun goes down.

Drawing inspiration from the bonsai, the Park Planters were created to elevate the common household plant to the status of full grown tree. The potted plant becomes the backdrop for an urban park scene. This is the first in a series of two different park scenes investigating the dark side of the park, the stuff that happens when the sun goes down and you’re not supposed to play in the park any more. You’ll find a lost salesman, a flasher a gay couple and a mugger, with no two scenes being alike ensuring the autonomy of each piece. Beautifully crafted out of porcelain each set contains a plate, the planter base and two parts of the lid, one blank and one with the scene of your choice.

images via Science & Sons

And then I came across this guy who decided the Park Planters were too expensive and made his own. I have to say, these are pretty fun…

And then made more…