In art as in nature, clear lines elude

Yale University Art Gallery’s latest exhibition is a cross-collection mix of artists’ work and nature’s — organized by a Yale alum from Easton who is questioning the lines that humans draw.

“James Prosek: Art, Artifact, Artifice” will run through June 7 at the Chapel Street gallery, assembling objects from the collections of the gallery, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Yale Center for British Art.

Prosek, 44, born in Stamford, is an awardwinning artist, naturalist and writer who has placed an installation of 222 bird specimens from Peabody’s collection at the centerpiece of his show — affixed to the wall and organized by color. The point? The 15-foot-wide display suggests that in the color spectrum, clear lines do not exist. The same with evolution, says a Yale

release. “Where, for example, does red end and orange begin? Likewise, it is often difficult to define where one species ends and another begins in the evolutionary timeline.”

The exhibition places Prosek’s own work in dialogue with a wide range of both man-made objects and those produced by billions of years of evolution. By challenging traditional separations of museum collections into “art” and “artifact,” or “natural” and “man-made,” says the Yale release, Prosek asks viewers to explore to what extent these distinctions matter. Should we draw such boundaries? Or do they limit what we are able to see, substituting categories and classifications for pure experience?

“What would happen,” Prosek is quoted, “if we stop putting things into neat categories and simply marvel at the wondrous and complex world of which we are a part?”

On display is the work of European and American artists, including Paul Gauguin and John Constable, Martin Puryear

“... It is often difficult to define where one species ends and another begins in the evolutionary timeline.”

James Prosek

and Helen Frankenthaler, Japanese woodblock prints, Persian ceramics, an Indonesian fish trap, bird eggs, the skull of a Torosaurus dinosaur and a bison-horn cup.

About a third of the nearly 100 objects in the show are Prosek’s own, including canvases, collages and sculptures that weave together the show’s major themes.

Martin J. Heade’s “Jungle Orchids and Hummingbirds” is part of “Art, Artifact, Artifice.”

YUAG / Contributed photo The painting “Black Sea Bass” by James Prosek.

Prosek’s “Paradise Lost” at Yale University Art Gallery.

YUAG / Contributed photo A portion of James Prosek’s “Bird Spectrumm” which is a centerpiece of the exhibition.

Paul Gaugin’s “Paradise Lost,” on display at the Yale exhibition. The exhibit places Prosek’s own work in dialogue with a wide range of both man-made objects and those produced by billions of years of evolution.