Scott Listfield is well known in the New Contemporary genre for his oil paintings of an astronaut exploring near-futurist environments, often with prominent decaying man-made structures. His is instantly recognizable due to the presence of the central figure, who acts as vessel for the viewer to fill, allowing each person to interpret the scene from their own personal perspective.
In Listfield’s latest series, Re-Entry, the central figure continues to explore a land which seems absent of human life, apart from the relics they have left behind. Each painting is a snap-shot of the astronaut’s encounter with different animal species, some presently abundant on earth, some facing extinction and others who have already gone extinct. The blending of time periods provide a layer of ambiguity about what has occurred to create the world in which we’re currently marooned.