David Strauss

Works on the relationship between human beings and nature —
on responsibility, alienation, consumption, guilt,
and the gradual silencing of the living world.

My work explores the relationship between human beings and nature —
and the responsibility that arises from it.

Human beings are not separate from the world they inhabit.
Every living being is life itself —
an expression of the same being
which we, too, are.

And yet we no longer see the world
as something to which we belong,
but increasingly as a standing reserve —
something existing merely to be used,
ordered, and consumed.

My work is an attempt
to make this visible.
Not as moral instruction.
Not as decoration.

But as remembrance.
For true art is never mere ornament.
Art without meaning, without message,
is mere decoration, and seizes to be art.

At its highest,
art opens a new way of seeing —
revealing dimensions of being
that otherwise remain concealed.

That is why I write.
That is why I paint.

Not to depict scenery.
Not to entertain.
Not to create decoration.

But to make true that life itself —
non-human life just like ours –
has value on its own,
even if our age has largely forgotten it.

Many speak today of responsibility
while continuing to participate
in destruction.

But responsibility
that does not manifest in one’s own life
is no responsibility at all.

If knowledge has no consequences for action,
then we never truly wished to understand.

I therefore try
to live what I speak about —
as consistently
as remains possible within this world.

We are all only life.