ARTIST'S STATEMENT: Chris Isner

Bald, Anthropomorph Amputees in Profile and Homo novo

Decisions adhered to over time are of paramount importance, Chris Isner maintains, yet those decisions need not be so terribly important in and of themselves: spontaneous, arbitrary, even silly decisions, assiduously adhered to, are more likely to yield anything of interest in the long run as the work evolves.   Isner, a draughtsman of flesh since childhood, decided in the mid-90s to never again draw hands and feet, hair, bifaciality, or strictly human proportion, simply because he was drunk and couldn’t be bothered to put forth the effort at that particular moment.  The decision, however, was irrevocably made and set the stage for his intermittent, open-ended series Bald Amputee Anthropomorphs in Profile.  Isner’s current sub-series, Homo Novo, is an organic offshoot stemming from his depictions of BAAP infants.  In it, he irreverently examines genetically engineered speciation of the Homo sapiens sapiens genome as an inevitable and imminent happening.

“Basically, what science can do, it most definitely will do.  There has never been a scientific or technological advancement that hasn’t been utilized and if conditions currently exist for such advancement to happen, then it’s already happening.  To achieve speciation, all you need is a wealthy, secretive regime unencumbered with Judeo-Christian morality, willing to funnel a few billion into research and hold a hundred or so scientists in seclusion: fait accompli.  So, this is the millennium—more likely the century—that we will achieve speciation.  And it is already happening.”

Indeed, scientists have already developed a pig/human hybrid: viable emrbryos of recombinant human and pig DNA.  The scientists claim that the embryos could have been successfully implanted into either human or pig uteruses and brought to term (apparently, the embryos were destroyed…?) 

Isner’s fetal forms don’t pretend to envision what Homo Novo might look like, rather they are strangely endearing characters that merely attempt to normalize the concept of speciation imminence, acting as visual anchors for that argument, projecting the subtext into the white noise of our collective consciousness.  His comic devices slyly sidestep all moral and ethical considerations as he hyper-sexualizes his figures, each sporting an enormous penis and at least one set of breasts (apparently Isner’s inclusion of breasts sought to partially feminize figures that the profile-only stricture kept male: “Vulval profiles aren’t very interesting to draw unless they’re grossly exaggerated…super-elastic beef curtains, however, do tend to offend.”)  Many Homo novos are either ejaculating or otherwise engaged with their fetal twins in works that depict twins or triplets.

Given that human speciation may well be the most pressing issue of our time, Isner’s approach might prove effective in its refusal to indulge in pedantic hysterics.  One species is, after all, no better than any other from a strictly objective point of view, all things being equal, and even catastrophic, global climate change becomes somewhat a moot point in the context of species proliferation on a scale unseen since the Cambrian Explosion.  “Judgment aside, we are the greatest evolutionary force to hit the planet since the last big asteroid.”  But what of us as the Gods created in Homo novo’s image battle for supremacy with our own?  Isner smirks, “It’s a jungle out there, innit”.