environmental art – Page 13

May 25, 2022December 30, 2022, by Susan Hoffman Fishman

What Happens When an Artist Goes to Eden

A picture containing plant, grass

Description automatically generated — *Eden in Iraq Wastewater Garden Project* (2011-present), site drawing of El Chibaish, 26,250 square meters (6.4 acres, 2.6 hectares), rendering by Bernard Du, 2017)

In 2011, photographer and environmental artist Meridel Rubenstein envisioned creating a garden in southern Iraq where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers cross, near the supposed site of the biblical Garden of Eden. However, unlike its idyllic predecessor – a mythical paradise in a newly formed world – this new garden would help to heal what had become a fragile, desert wasteland by cleaning existing wastewater and establishing a culturally significant green space.

May 23, 2022December 30, 2022, by Art Spiel

Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats by ecoartspace

Featured Project: with curator Sue Spaid

A picture containing floor, indoor, ceiling, people

Description automatically generated — Tessa Grundon, *Invasive Species*, 2018-2021/2022, Asiatic Bittersweet root systems and border fencing, dimensions variable.

The group show Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn includes paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations addressing environmental issues by more than fifty artists from the New York City region who are members of ecoartspace. The title is based on Claire McConaughy’s oil painting, Fragile Rainbow, referencing both hope and loss. The show runs from May 7^th through June 4^th, 2022. Curator Sue Spaid elaborates on this large-scale group show.

May 16, 2022March 29, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Hovey Brock: Crazy River

In Dialogue with Hovey Brock

A person painting a picture

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Hovey Brock at work on *Crazy River,* 2019, acrylic on panel, 30” x 40,” a work from his *Crazy River* series.

Hovey Brock’s current paintings are part of Crazy River, a larger project he has been developing since 2017. The paintings are based on his life-long relationship to the West Branch of the Neversink, which runs between Ulster and Sullivan counties in New York state. The project also includes text and videos, drawing on the artist’s experience and stories about the West Branch and the western Catskill mountains handed down through his family.

May 9, 2022May 9, 2022, by Joan Sullivan

Just Say When

*Still from Jessica Segall’s film* Say When, produced by Little Sun (2021)

Speaking on behalf of all the amazing artists I’ve interviewed over the past four years for this monthly Renewable Energy series, I think that one of the greatest compliments any of us could ever hope to receive would be to be described as a “superhero” by Olafur Eliasson.

April 25, 2022February 25, 2022, by Susan Hoffman Fishman

Waters of the Future

A picture containing fabric

Description automatically generated — *Águas do Futuro*, detail, *mokuhanga* on *washi* scroll(handmade Japanese paper), installed in Bahia, Brazil, 2018

For Brooklyn-based printmaker Florence Neal, water has always been a dominant presence in her life. She grew up in Columbus, Georgia, near the Chattahoochee River, which straddles the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia borders. There she developed an appreciation for the Native American stories about the river as well as first-hand knowledge of the negative impact that the cotton and iron mills of the past and the pervasive industrial pollution had had on its health.

April 18, 2022February 25, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Anonda Bell – Incidental Encounters with Nature

A picture containing wall, indoor, floor, standing

Description automatically generated — Installing “Belladonna” piece at Village West Gallery in Jersey City, March 2020. Photo courtesy of Michael Endy

Artist Anonda Bell reflects in her mixed media installations on a range of complex notions—from exploring different ways women have been perceived throughout history to environmental concerns. The entry point to her projects include homages to historical figures like the American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman who protested in her book Yellow Wallpaper the oppression of women at the end of the 19th century, and the Australian Lindy Chamberlain who was falsely charged with murdering her baby; references to cultural trends in psychology related to women’s anxiety and Hysteria; or environmental concerns referencing Biophobia and extinction.

April 11, 2022November 2, 2022, by Amy Brady

An Interview with Artists Amanda Maciuba, Jen Morris & Jessica Tam

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Description automatically generated — *Tip of the Iceberg by Amanda Maciuba, Jen Morris, Jessica Tam, dimensions variable, vinyl on glass and wall, 2021*

This month, I have a wonderful interview with three artists for you. Amanda Maciuba, Jen Morris, and Jessica Tam are all visual artists working in different mediums. However, they share a fascination with how ecological language (surge, spike, wave, etc.) has worked its way into news reports’ descriptions of large phenomena such as crowds, pandemics, and political movements. They recently closed a show at the A.P.E., Ltd. Gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts titled WAVE/SURGE/SPIKE.

April 6, 2022July 27, 2026, by Art Spiel

Climate Conversations at Easton’s PA Nurture Nature Center

Previewing

A wall with art on it

Description automatically generated with low confidence — Susan Hoffman Fishman, *In the Beginning There Was Only Water*, 30 in. x 50 ft., acrylic, oil pigment stick and mixed media on paper, 2021, Installation view at Janice Charach Gallery, West Bloomfield, Michigan

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2020 through 2021, eight women artists from the Midwest and the East Coast of the United States came together via Zoom to read and discuss All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Ph.D. and Katharine K. Wilkinson, Ph.D. The book contains essays and poetry by a cadre of diverse women policy wonks, scientists, writers, journalists, lawyers, activists, and others who address the most critical existential issue of our time with the intention of offering different ways to effect change and mend the significant damage that we have caused to the Earth. The artists’ responses to the essays form the exhibition Climate Conversations: All We Can Save. The exhibition runs through June 30^th, 2022.

March 28, 2022November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Sharon Yavo-Ayalon: Laminated Earth at ZAZ

Featured Artist

A picture containing indoor, ceiling, platform

Description automatically generated — installation views; 7ft Mud Curtains, photo courtesy of Yunha Choi

Laminatede Earth, Sharon Yavo-Ayalon’s large-scale multimedia installation at ZAZ10TS intersects architectural representations of housing with land art practices—raw soil and synthetic matter coalesce. Sharon Yavo-Ayalon, an artist and architect, draws from both disciplines to transform the confined lobby of 10 Times Square into a shimmering dreamy landscape. The exhibition extends to the ZAZ corner billboard on 41^st and 7^th with video art, taken from a performance of the artist who builds, destructs, and rebuilds her own plastic home. The show is curated by Professor Lala Ben-Alon and runs in the gallery through April 28^th, 2022.

March 14, 2022January 8, 2022, by Jenny Blazing

Journey Toward a Turning Point

A picture containing text

Description automatically generated — *Blazing, California Dreamin’,* acrylic painting incorporating original hand-painted paper on stretched canvas, 30”x 40

Over the past decade, we have witnessed a proliferation of climate-related disasters across the world. Storms have become stronger, wildfires more intense. Sea ice is melting at a higher rate as the earth grows hotter. Each of these problems alone endangers human welfare. Together, they represent an existential threat. Scientists often describe our position as nearing a “tipping point” at which we teeter at the precipice of an irreversible cascade of ecosystem collapse. My new collaboration with fellow artist Carin Walsh presents a different view of our role in this crisis. It serves as a reminder that we are not passive observers of this disaster, but active agents with the ability to change course and build a safer and healthier future. Our message is that while the climate is approaching a tipping point, our society is at a turning point. We have the power to choose whether we will continue on our current path, or whether we will turn to embrace the measures necessary to reverse climate change.