The garden is both a creation of human hands and a natural space where nature is framed, controlled, and transformed. It exists in the tension between the cultivated and the wild, revealing a paradox: we are simultaneously a part of nature and separate from it.

... A line that began the framing for “Second Nature”. 

Second Nature advances Ethan Platt’s exploration of contemporary figuration through a new series of work that confronts notions of the ‘natural’ within urban and digital contexts. These paintings reference floral systems through colour, composition and mood to compose the synthetic figure in a flux state. In this state, digital aesthetics echo botanical life, and the artificial is framed by the natural. Through this dialogue, Second Nature asks what is fabricated, what is organic and what becomes our second nature.

Drawing on personal experiences, Platt’s paintings create mementos, vessels, and love letters to the natural world, relationships, and the rhythms of contemporary life. These encounters are conveyed through referencing iconic paintings such as Le Déjeuner Sur L'herbe (Édouard Manet, 1862-63), sculptures such as Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1647-52),  artistic tropes such as ‘Musca Depicta’, floriography, and contemporary interpretations of the vanitas genre.  This highlights a narrative based in ‘natural order’, spirituality, and mortality, to contemplate contemporary human experiences.

Ethan Platt (b. 2001) is a Canadian artist whose work approaches figuration through a contemporary digital lens. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from OCAD University, where he was recognized with several awards, including the Richard Lemieux Scholarship, the Hugh Mackenzie Memorial Scholarship, and the Donna MacLean Award.

Platt’s oil painting practice is informed by digital rendering, using this intersection to reflect on the pace and complexity of contemporary urban and online life. His work seeks to blur the lines between the perceived, the fabricated, and the real. In effect, he examines how innovation reshapes our understanding of the world, identity, and reality itself.