Megafauna | Opening & Artist Reception

MEGAFAUNA
John Mulvany’s Megafauna offers a reflection on the fragile boundary between life and
death, nature and artifice. Through extensive photographic research in Victorian-era
natural history museums and West Texas taxidermy shops, Mulvany crafts digital
collages that merge taxidermy animals with contemporary landscapes, which are then
reimagined through paint. His work evokes an unsettling liminality—where creatures,
once living, now hover in a state of preserved decay, confronting viewers with the
paradox of preservation: a frozen moment of life that is simultaneously marked by
death.
The animals in Megafauna act as relics of a lost natural world, yet their presence hints
at something more profound—an inquiry into the future of life itself. Drawing on themes
explored by philosopher Nick Bostrom, particularly his work on the future of biological
and AI technologies, Mulvany’s paintings provoke questions about the next phase of
existence. As Bostrom explores the potential of technological advancements to
recreate or simulate life, Megafauna reflects a similar tension: the animals,
approximations of life, embody the unsettling potential of a world where the line
between natural and artificial blurs.
By embedding these taxidermied animals into landscapes, Mulvany not only comments
on the human desire to preserve and control nature but also gestures towards a future
where the very essence of life may be recreated—perhaps even superseded—by
artificial means. In this sense, Megafauna is not just about what has been lost but
about what may be artificially revived, asking viewers to consider the implications of
future biological and AI technologies on the natural world.
Mulvany’s paintings thus serves as both a memorial and a warning, urging us to
contemplate the delicate balance between preservation and evolution, and between life
as we know it and the life that may soon be engineered. Through his work, the viewer
is left to ponder the ethical and philosophical implications of a world in which nature,
like his paintings, may one day be reconstructed from the remnants of the past.
Artist Bio
John Mulvany is an artist and art educator originally from Ireland who has been living
and working in Austin for twenty five years. He graduated from the College of Art,
Design and Print in Dublin, Ireland and the Crawford College of Art in Cork, Ireland. His
work was featured in the Texas Biennial and nominated as best artist by the Austin
Visual Arts Association. Among the galleries where he has exhibited his work are
grayDUCK gallery, Canopy, ICOSA, The Dougherty Arts Center in Austin, Texas
Lutheran University, and Galleri Urbane in Marfa, Texas. His most recent exhibitions
were Pinnacles at Cloud Tree Gallery and Darkages with Leon Alesi at ICOSA Gallery,
both in Austin, TX.