The exhibition features carefully selected works by four artists working across distinctive media. Karin Waskiewicz blends carving techniques by layering acrylic paint to create textured paintings inspired by natural landscapes. Xuebing Du captures botanical elements through photography, focusing on texture, light, and color, merging Pictorialism with old master still-life compositions.

Alex Fischer integrates digital and natural elements, inspired by Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme, to explore the authenticity of digital interactions. Finally, Prof. Andrew Parker's Pure Structural Colour® artworks use nanotechnology to produce vibrant, pigment-free colors, a cutting-edge invention from his three decades of experience in the academic and scientific fields, inspired by the vivid structural colors found in nature.

By showcasing contemporary artists who navigate these complex themes, Sage Culture Gallery promotes a critical examination of the non-natural as a natural extension of human creativity. The exhibition explores how these artistic expressions shape and are shaped by our cultural and societal contexts.

In today's fast-transforming world, technical development is deeply rooted in scientific rigor, influenced by Empiricism, Rationalism, Naturalism, and Positivism, emphasizing observation, reason, and empirical evidence. This foundation requires a robust ethical framework to navigate arising complexities.  Contrary to empirical and rational philosophies that focus on measurable features, "non-natural" aspects of humanity, such as art and human complexity, remain abstract and cannot be fully captured by technology. Non-natural aspects transcend the measurable, defying technology's binary nature.

"Non-Natural" invites viewers to contemplate the role of artistic media, from traditional materials to modern technologies, in shaping the creation and perception of art, cultural transformations, and our relationship with nature. While advancements in science and technology, especially AI, with their inherent mathematical constraints, challenge our understanding of human complexity, non-naturalistic philosophy emphasizes abstract properties and aesthetic values beyond scientific explanation, contrasting with naturalism and its rationalist currents that focus on the observable and empirical. 

The exhibition highlights the role of art in expressing spiritual freedom and human complexity. These concepts are abstract and intuitively understood, going beyond ordinary reality and emphasizing the significance of non-material qualities in our aesthetic experience.

The "Non-Natural" exhibition embodies Sage Culture Gallery's mission to explore the intricate relationship between art, nature, and technology. The exhibition challenges traditional boundaries and fosters a deeper understanding of perception and aesthetics by featuring artists who utilize diverse media to reimagine our connection to the natural world. Each artist's work reflects a unique approach to observing and interpreting natural phenomena, emphasizing the significance of nonmaterial qualities in our aesthetic experience. Through this exhibition, Sage Culture Gallery continues its commitment to addressing environmental impact and the evolving role of art in a digital age, inviting viewers to reflect on the profound and often intangible connections that define our existence.

Alex Fischer, born in 1986, is an artist who, since the turn of the century, has explored digital media and painting as a dynamic canvas, reflecting early engagements with software from a rural family farm near Formosa, Canada to the latest imaging technologies and often collaborative sense of assisted approach. Their work, echoing the inventive spirit of Fluxus and the reflective nature of Nouveau Réalisme, deeply engages with the interconnected realms of digital and natural environments.  In their portfolio, the fusion of the artificial with the organic, the interfacing of technology in daily life, and the transformation of identity through digital means coalesce into a compelling narrative. Fischer's work incorporates themes from media theory, particularly the concepts of the simulacrum and hyperreality, reflecting on the omnipresence of digital culture. Their art prompts a reevaluation of the authenticity of our interactions within this mediated landscape, suggesting profound shifts in human experience shaped by technological narratives. Through their innovative approach, Fischer makes a significant contribution to discussions about the future of artistic practice in a digitally augmented world, establishing their work as pivotal in both artistic and academic circles.

Xuebing Du was born in China in 1990 and graduated from the Academy of Art University in Web Design and New Media. She lives and works in California as a photographer and product designer.  Her photographic practice focuses on various elements of the natural world, particularly plants, which she translates into soft, tender images and vibrant, shimmering colors. With each new shot, we discover a new fabric, a new glow, a new radiance.  Her photographs began to be noticed in 2017. Since then, many magazines dedicated to photographic art around the world have published them, and major fashion and industrial brands have used them. She has also been presented in several group exhibitions in the USA, Europe, and China. Inspired by vegetation, cinema, and painting, she constructs a graphic universe with shimmering tones. This aesthetic is reflected in her series California - an atypical road trip through the heart of the Sin Ti, a tribute to Impressionist paintings. 

Karin Waskiewicz (b. 1988) was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art from Kent State University and her Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. She currently works and lives in New York, NY. In addition to making art, she is also an Art conservator for a private practice paper conservation studio. Her paintings are made of multiple layers of acrylic paint before she carves back into the built-up surface with woodcarving tools. This process of sedimentation and erasure, covering and uncovering, transforms the layers of paint into three-dimensional woven textures. She intuitively carves and chips away the surface, revealing layers and hidden images underneath. Her practice is much like that of an archeologist, excavating the surfaces of her paintings to expose fragments of time. "I decode the physical and affective elements of a landscape into complex color systems, breaking down colors into swatches to capture the ways in which slight variations in hue and shade vibrate within the eye. The paintings change slightly with the viewer's gaze; in this way, they have the same characteristics as a landscape, it changes, as we inhabit it. I apply multiple layers of acrylic paint, before carving back into the built-up surface with woodcarving tools. This process of covering and uncovering transforms the layers of paint into three-dimensional woven textures. I see my paintings as having different facades, some layers seen again through carving, some never to be seen again. By carving into the layers, I am bringing forward multiple moments in time. I relate the many layers of my paintings to moments in my life; some events in time stay with us and some remain as faint memories. My goal is to capture not just the way a specific landscape looks and feels, but the complex way it affects our body and resonates in our memory".

Andrew Parker, CEO of Lifescaped and Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, is a scientist and artist who has been, over the past 25 years, dedicating his life to researching photonic structures and eyes: evolution, development, and biomimetics. His main field of study is the diversity and evolution of structural color in nature.  As a PhD student in the 1990s, he examined tiny marine animals famous for their nocturnal bioluminescent light displays. Working at the Los Angeles County Museum, Andrew discovered that some of these animals exhibited another type of light display – iridescence, or structural color. From tiny body parts, colorless surfaces containing microscopic structures reflected mesmerizing blues and greens. And that architecture was new to biology. Andrew found that in many of these cases, the general principles of light reflection were the same, and he sought to reproduce them himself in his lab and studio. After many years of experimentation, Andrew succeeded in making this color using industrial machines in conventional manufacturing works. The same deep, luxurious yet intense color effect as seen on a Morpho butterfly's wing or a peacock's neck plumage sprung from workshops in a complete spectrum of hues. This could be considered the world's brightest coloration, and became known as Pure Structural Colour®. In 2015, Professor Parker founded his lab and studio Lifescaped with the outstanding support of King Charles III. Through Lifescaped, Professor Andrew continuously researches the intersections between science, art, and design, focusing on bio-inspiration.  Made using only transparent materials, each Pure Structural Colour® disc reflects a hue in the white spotlight with optimal brightness, triggering effects in our visual system that seemingly captures the psychological aspect portrayed.