Martin Wittfooth’s Deus Ex Terra exhibition at Corey Helford Gallery (previously featured) marks a powerful turn in his ongoing meditation on nature’s elemental rhythms. Across 19 new oil paintings — on canvas, linen, and wood — Wittfooth conjures worlds where animals are forged from volcanoes, carved from ice, or billowing like clouds. Works such as Aspect of Fire and Aspect of Air depict horses as molten rock or steamy silhouettes, while diptychs like Duel stretch twelve feet wide to dramatize conflict and harmony between opposing natural forces. In circular tondos of 18 to 24 inches, the forms are more contained but no less intense, emphasizing cycles of growth and decay on a human scale.
The exhibition’s title, Deus Ex Terra (god out of the earth), reverses a classical concept — instead of gods appearing through mechanical contrivance, here it is the raw forces of earth, sky, water, and season that act. Wittfooth draws on the Hermetic maxim “As above, so below; As within, so without” to shape his compositions: galaxies spiral, rivers branch, leaves and shells coil — all mirrored across scales of existence. This philosophical scaffold underlies the works’ visual drama, bridging the mythical with ecological urgency.
Earlier works by Wittfooth often spoke directly of human impact — land stripped, plastics piled, ecosystems stressed. In Deus Ex Terra, there is a shift: rather than focusing only on the scars inflicted by humanity, the artist pulls attention toward ancient, persistent natural patterns that endure despite disruption. Forests, storms, animal forms, and seasonal transitions become carriers of memory and continuity, affirming that nature possesses its own resilience — one rooted in cycles that predate human intervention and will outlast it, too.
Through dramatic contrasts — glowing beasts in darkened skies, animals emerging from unstable terrain, forms that are beautiful but ominous — Wittfooth crafts a vision both sublime and unsettling. His technical prowess in oil painting channels classical European traditions, yet his themes feel entirely urgent: climate, extinction, transformation. Deus Ex Terra does not offer comfort, but it does stir profound reflection on where we stand in relation to forces far larger than ourselves — and how even our tumult may be just one gesture in endlessly repeating dance of earth and sky.
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