Continuing with more fantastical fauna, this is the work of young Canadian artist Nicholas Di Genova. Entitled Chimera, this series gives full reign to Di Genova’s evolutionary imagination, as he creates apparently scientific illustrations of strange hybrids and mutated species. The Chimera was a monstrous fire-breathing creature of Greek mythology, composed of the body and head of a lion, with a goat’s head emerging from its back and a snake for a tail. Nasty! Di Genova imagines similarly fantastical composite creatures, though they seem slightly less ferocious: a bear bred with a bird, a giraffe with a daffodil flower for its head or a tree frog–cockerel hybrid, for instance. The creatures all fit within Di Genova’s own imagined ecosystems, each one part of a group assigned to a particular region – jungle, fresh water, desert, etc. Painstakingly hand-drawn in black pen, with their apparent biological ancestors indicated in small grids and subsets in each picture, the level of detail and complexity in these highly original drawings almost defies belief. Click the thumbnails to see for yourself.
Temperate Forest, 2009
Fresh Water Region, 2009
Savannah Region, 2009
Polar Region, 2009
Jungle Region, 2009
All images © Nicholas Di Genova/Fredericks & Freiser Gallery, NY
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