Hunter Longe (b. 1985) is a visual artist working in range of mediums on pieces inspired by the properties and transformations of the materials they employ. Deeply moved by discovering that 2/3 of the Earth’s mineral species have evolved after bacteria and plants began to fill the atmosphere with oxygen, the artist sees creativity as innate and permeating all materials. In the series Small Goals, drawings on recycled plastic the size of a SIM cards are affixed to stones that have formed in part due to living organisms. The drawings often depict what ancient plants, algae and landscapes might have looked like millions to billions of years ago. These pieces recall that plastic, made from petroleum, is the compressed and transmuted bodies of formerly living organisms. In other recent projects, photovoltaic cells (small solar panels) are connected to amplifiers and speakers in order to convert light from LEDs or video projections into sound.

By appropriating stories, apparatuses and images from the sciences and conflating them with the esoteric and folkloric, Longe’s works undo the distinctions between the living and the non-living and allude to an underlying sentience that far exceeds the human realm.