Nicholas Baxter's Apostasy

These are just 4 out of the 10 oil paintings in Nicholas Baxter's incredible Apostasy series.  Apostasy means renunciation of a religion by a person and this series explores science and medicine as the new religion.Nicholas boldly states in his artist statement to this series,

"These images represent an inquiry into the medicalization of modern society.  In our time, the specialized knowledge of an elite group has been canonized and made gospel, resulting in the learned helplessness of an increasingly ill populace. Surgeons and scientists alike have become the new priests of a material-industrial age, in which living organisms seem to be regarded as no more than an assemblage of mechanical parts......Science is the new religion, Big Pharma is the church, the doctors are priests, pills our Holy Communion, and sickness is our only hope of salvation when diseases are dollar signs that fortify the edifice.So this is my apostasy, my leap for sovereignty from the dungeon of a castle made of glass and steel sterility. A journey back towards wholeness in The Garden that made me. A breach of faith in hopes that I may rejoin the wild world and be healed in its immeasurable and immutable wisdom."

View more of Nicholas' photorealistic oil paintings at nbaxter.com.If the style of Nicholas' paintings strike your fancy, also check out the work of Danny Quirk, one of the very popular artist's in our current OBJECTIFY THIS exhibition (Sept 7–29, 2012).