Jason DeMarte, an artist/photographer based in Michigan, combines images of artificial flora and fauna and processed food (and other commercial products) to create a new depiction of the natural world in the series “Confected.” Even in the tranquility of each image, the scenes reflect the dissonance inherent in the contemporary experience. The artist says he uses “completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is ‘real,’ and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence.” Follow the artist on Instagram here.
“Confected” uses fake avian species and hazy green backdrops as entry points, with candy descending from the sky and oozing on the “lifeforms” creating the pops of the color in each digital creation. In the past, with series like “Sightings” and “Natural Preserve,” DeMarte focused on less elements for this effect. Whether it was bacon grazing in a field or a buffalo consumed by a false floral arrangement.
By doing this, DeMarte often challenges our own notions of what the “natural world” even means, and the depth of our dependence on things wholly created outside of this place we pretend to revere. “This unnatural experience of the so-called ‘natural’ world is reflected in the way we, as modern consumers, ingest products,” the artist says.
Inspired in part by the Land Art movement of the late 1960s, 
In the series “Ça va aller,” photographer 
Kiev-based photographer