Environmental Impact: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation
Date: December 13, 2015 – February 21, 2016
Curated By: Billie Milam Weisman
Venue: Carnegie Art Museum
424 South C Street, Oxnard, CA, 93030
https://www.carnegieartcornerstones.com/uploads/2/0/5/0/2050909/environmental_impact.pdf
Exhibited Artists:
Lita Albuquerque, Peter Alexander, James Bachman, Radcliffe Bailey, Jerrald Balance, Zigi Ben-Haim, Kelly Berg, Louisa Chase, Dawn Dedeaux, Daniel Dove, Courtney Egan, Andy Goldsworthy, Joe Goode, Todd Hebert, Gegam Kacherian, Won JU Lim, Jen Liu, Mi Ju, Andy Moses, Gina Phillips, Andrew Piedilato, Linda Ridgway, Edward Ruscha, Charles Simonds, Ryozo Tsumaki, Matt Wedel, Neil Welliver, Frederick S. Wight, and Dustin Yellin.
Environmental Impact: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation
Artists have grappled with the forces of nature from the time of the earliest cave paintings to the present. Today, our environment is strongly impacted by the Earth's relentlessly evolving weather conditions, such as tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, severe winds, rains, etc. Man has also added to the list of stimuli which has significantly affected the quality of the human environment with industrial pollution, manufacturing, automobile and airplane exhaust, plastics, paints, etc. In Environmental Impact: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, curator Billie Milam Weisman is showing various examples of how artists have reproduced, commented and critiqued our ever-changing environment, whether the result of nature's forces or man's interventions. The exhibition brings together different approaches to the subject—both formal and conceptual—including commentary on pollution and natural disasters, and observing and altering the environment.
For those artists coming to terms with their environment by observing and recreating it, abstraction and fantasy are some of the strategies used. Dawn Dedeaux uses fantasy landscapes to posit an exit strategy form earth when the planet gives out. Jen Liu also pushes the conception of nature in the direction of fantasy environments, creating a dreamlike otherworldly place rooted in an imagined future or past. Andrew Piedilato suggests a logjam by way of significantly abstracted forms in painting.
Some artists take a conceptual approach to bridge the gap between man and nature, or comment on pollution or natural disasters. Daniel Dove inserts social critiques in his works illuminating where industry and nature collide. Charles Simonds, uses aerial perspective to map out Man's presence through architectural structures or roads. Artists such as Joe Goode and Kelly Berg use the drama of painting to convey the stunning force of a forest fire or ominous tornados. Veronica Brovall depicts the human figure as the root of a tree to show the reciprocal effect the degradation of the environment has on Man.
Nothing stays the same—whether it is Nature causing the change or Man. Artists historically and in the future will continue to be influenced by the impact of and on our environment and each will interpret it in a different manner. Their works provide contemporary perspectives on the incessant transformations of the Earth, both natural and man-made.