Genus Allegorius springs from meditations on Darwin and 19th Century naturalists in their efforts to classify and consolidate disparate elements of the natural world into a unified theory. Exploring the historical antecedents to natural history museums, Wunderkabinets displayed artifacts, both real and fantastical, in an effort to bridge the divide between the prosaic and the numinous, between nascent science and the fantastical. This installation references the discovery and extinction of species, and the means by which scientific research displays itself. Working with detritus and found objects collected in junk shops displayed in museum-style cases and antique cabinets, the assemblage gives expression to an interchange between symbolic meaning ascribed to common objects and their accepted meaning.
