User:Cofawiki/fifth

The Black Estate is an artists’ collaborative comprised of Noah MacDonald and Scott Pagano. Invested in new media the artists use new technologies to rationalize, readjust and re-envision the meaning of “being” in this time of profound global change. In Stemma, a body of hauntingly beautiful and surreal video works contemporary man’s relationship with his natural environment is called into question.

Black Estate employs cutting-edge digital animation in combination with traditional ink painting to produce the artist’s view of landscape and man's growing distance from the natural world. This concern lies at the forefront of these works; Field and Tree show dark depictions of nature that, at first glance, appear as traditional ink painting but, through animation, present the viewer with a sick, slow moving image that call to mind the degradation of the natural landscape. A New York Sun review allows, "the hypnotic scene is beguiling, it is also more than a little chilling in an era where words like "global warming" and "nuclear winter" have become a part of our vocabulary.

Harking back to the then revolutionary 10th century ink wash masters, The Black Estate aligns itself with beliefs that still ring true: a work of visual art must incorporate not only technique but Spirit, representing both visible forms and their deeper significance to the world at large. The Black Estate’s message is a metaphor for the eternal cycle of life and regeneration, expressive and suggestive of human striving and introspection.