When most people walk through expansive parking lots or fields of invasive grass, they see familiar American landscapes. Not Santa Cruz painter Taylor Seamount. They see a dystopian reality spreading out before them, filling them with “day-ruining existential dread.” Observing a world so modified by human activity — to the detriment of both people and nature — Seamount can’t help but feel depressed at sights such as these. 

To combat the hopelessness they feel, Seamount has turned to an environmental art movement called solar punk. Solar punk is a utopian artistic and literary genre that pictures a world where humanity addresses climate change, environmental destruction and social inequality. In their new series, Seamount paints a Santa Cruz scene true to reality —“en plein air” — then repaints it as an eco-utopia. 

Under their brush, the empty parking lot at Seacliff State Beach becomes a community garden. The sandpit scooped out of Rio Del Mar after the winter storms is restored to a thriving coastal wetland. Rush-hour traffic on Highway 1 vanishes, transformed into a high-speed rail line. 

This form of “speculative fiction” sees humans as stewards of the land, with infrastructure and governance sliding into harmony with nature. Seamount wants their art to inspire people to imagine their own ideal world. 

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