Photographer Matthew Morrocco explores our delicate relationship with nature in the era of climate change

For centuries, spring has fascinated artists nearly as much as it has tormented them. From Botticelli’s La Primavera to Monet’s Orchard in Spring, the vernal season has come to symbolise rebirth while reminding us of the passage of time — “like a child that knows poems by heart,” observed Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Yet, as spring arrives persistently earlier, and the rest of the seasons feel ever-more disrupted, the state of seasonal poetics is, well, alarming. In his new series, entitled ORCHID.Spring, American photographer Matthew Morrocco reimagines our relationship with the natural world, at a time when its future feels uncertain.

In the photographs, the artist appears dressed in a monochromatic body suit, merging his body within a landscape of blooming Sakura trees while mimicking their silhouettes. The figure, stripped of its most recognisable identity features, enters into a intimate dialogue with its surroundings, at once timely and timeless — like a thoughtful apology that was delivered a little too late.

When you consider that more than half of the carbon emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels across the entire history of humanity have been emitted in the last 30 years alone, one might start fantasising about what Botticelli’s spring looked like. But Morrocco’s series isn’t about nostalgia, nor is it a lecture on climate change. Instead, it beautifully portrays the intangibility of our longing for the fleeting natural order.

The New York-based photographer tells us more.

Hey Matthew. So what does spring mean to you?

Spring, to me is the most exciting season. It brings growth, renewal and destruction of the previous season’s loneliness. Winter, especially in New York City, is brutal and spring gives us an opportunity to reinvent, discover, and explore our behaviour, who we are and what we want—all to a backdrop of blooming flowers.

Your new project speaks to our relationship with nature, and the power we have as humans to alter it. In light of the ever-more concerning results of global climate change, this is a topic that can generate a certain amount of anxiety. Yet, your pictures are surprisingly serene and soothing. How do you negotiate that tension?

The work is meant to inspire a connectedness to nature, not necessarily discuss anxiety. I think a lot of the tactic around climate change is to speak of its potential and current horrors. I’d rather focus on the essentialness of nature to our wellbeing and personal spiritual fulfilment. At the same time, though, the suit I use is brightly coloured and not natural, so it does stand out in stark contrast which is important too, humans are connected to nature but still stand apart from it.

The notion of anonymity is central to the series. Do you find there is a certain power in being invisible, at a time when most of us crave visibility?

I find comfort in invisibility as it helps me separate myself from the loud cacophony of voices on social media. Disappearance has always been an essential part of how I operate.

This series contrasts interestingly from your previous body of work Complicit, in which you staged intimate encounters with older queer men. Has anything changed for you between these two projects?

I actually don’t think the two series are that different. My work has always been about intimacy and the politics of portraiture and self-portraiture. In this series, I still use my own body, I pose with a subject — the landscape — the work is still about intimacy and an attempt to reconcile differences to find solace and beauty. But to answer your question, I mostly just needed to build a retreat into my work, to escape New York City. Ultimately, it’s important to me that as a queer person I can enter spaces and conversations outside of the queer political and social landscape to discuss climate change and privacy politics as well as the issues that are more essential to my identity. There’s no one way to be queer and too often while working on Complicit, especially in grad school, I was fed a prescribed idea of who I was that I didn’t identify with.

In a way, you are the central figure of the series. Would you refer to this series as being of that genre?

I have worked almost exclusively in self-portraiture. I’m kind of a shy and reserved person so I prefer often to work alone and I use myself mostly because I enjoy reveling in the natural world on my own. Though, I wouldn’t categorise this work as self-portraiture necessarily.

In your previous series “Mirror Portraits”, which featured a number of your close friends posing in your Brooklyn bedroom, you had introduced a mise en abyme à la Velasquez, using a sophisticated play of mirrors. I see a pattern in the way you incorporate yourself in your work, like variations of a similar tactic?

Yes, I play with that a lot. I think photography today grapples with how and where to place oneself in pictures. To appear or not is an important choice everyone makes now that we have social media. Whereas throughout art history, the choice to include oneself or to make self portraits was so much more bold and important.

“ORCHID.Spring” by Matthew Morrocco is up at Gallerie B.B. until June 15, 2019, in Denver. It is curated by Sophie Olympia Riese