Roxy Paine New York, NY, USA, b. 1966
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Roxy Paine is an American conceptual artist whose work investigates the complex relationship between the natural world and industrial systems.
Lives and works in New York
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His practice unites meticulous craftsmanship with a conceptual rigor that questions how human ambition reshapes organic processes and environments.
Educated at Santa Fe College (New Mexico) and Pratt Institute (New York), Paine began his career in the early 1990s, co-founding the artist collective Brand Name Damages. His early installations and machine-based works brought him recognition on the international exhibition scene.
Throughout his career, Paine has examined the paradox between human control and natural growth. His extensive body of work includes art-making machines that automate the creative process, polymer casts of plants, hyperreal wooden replicas of tools and industrial objects, and large-scale wooden dioramas depicting human-made spaces — laboratories, fast-food restaurants, or airport security zones — reimagined as sites of reflection.
Among his most renowned series are the monumental stainless-steel tree sculptures. These intricate, hand-welded forms translate the logic of natural growth into mechanical precision, merging the vitality of organic structures with the rigidity of engineered design. Installed in public spaces, Paine’s trees form a dialogue with their surroundings: their polished surfaces mirror sky and city alike, while their branching forms echo the nervous system, electrical circuits, and the architecture of thought itself.
“I take this organic majestic being and break it down into components and rules.”– Roxy Paine
Paine’s work has been presented in major international exhibitions and is held in prominent museum collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Brooklyn Museum (New York), The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA, Los Angeles), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). -
Works
Roxy Paine New York, NY, USA, b. 1966
Bad Planet, 2005Foam, epoxy, lacquer, oil, stainless steel165,1 × 152,4 × 152,4 cmFurther images
'Control is a construct of human design, yet we remain unsettled when confronted with forces beyond our grasp. Equally crucial is the act of translation—bridging the divide between seemingly irreconcilable..."Control is a construct of human design, yet we remain unsettled when confronted with forces beyond our grasp. Equally crucial is the act of translation—bridging the divide between seemingly irreconcilable languages: the logic of systems and the chaos of nature, the rigidity of governance and the fluidity of wind." – Roxy Paine
Roxy Paine’s work has long explored the tension between the organic and the mechanized, creating a body of art that straddles both worlds. From artificial landscapes of fungi and flora to automated art-making machines and towering metallic trees, his vision filters nature through an industrial lens. By fusing the natural with the synthetic, Paine invites us to reconsider our uneasy position between the worlds we construct and the wild forces that elude our control.
In Bad Planet (2005), Paine presents a world that appears both familiar and unsettling. The large epoxy sphere, with its textured surface of growths, craters, and swirling patterns, evokes a planet shaped by time, climate, and external forces. Neither entirely organic nor wholly artificial, it sits at the intersection of nature and industry—an object to be studied, maintained, and reconsidered. Through this work, Paine encourages reflection on the Earth's shifting state, raising questions about our role in observing, understanding, and caring for the environment in an era of rapid change.
Exhibitions
'Bad Planet'. Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow. Apr–May 2008
Roxy Paine (New York 1966), EXPO 2015
FAI – Villa e Collezione Panza – Varese, Italy. 1 Jun–31 Dec 2015Publications
Roxy Paine. Opere – Works 1993-2015. FAI – Villa e Collezione Panza – Varese, Italy, 2015. pp.61
Roxy Paine. Rizzoli Electa 2018, p. 64. A Division of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, USA1/ 2
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