Reading The Earth

June 7 – July 28, 2023

Wilhelm Neusser, Fruitlands/Interchange (1951), 2019, Oil on paper/board, 24 x 36”

Reading The Earth
June 7 – July 28, 2023

Thursday, June 15th
Gallery Talk with Shana Dumont-Garr at 5:30pm
Continuing with artists in the exhibit at 6:00pm
Reception to follow

Gallery Talk with Shana Dumont-Garr Video 
https://suffolku.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=318f89b9-93dc-4af9-8ce8-b022017dabae

Landscapes are culture before they are nature: constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock. So goes the argument of this book. But it should be acknowledged that once a certain idea of landscape is a myth, a vision establishes itself in an actual place, it has a peculiar way of muddling categories, of making metaphors more real than their referents; of becoming, in fact, part of the scenery. Simon Schama, Landscape And Memory, pg 61

Reading is a way of seeing, of knowing. Reading the earth, the landscape, the place can be expressed in many ways. These can be imagined places, real places, envisioned ones.

The environment, the landscape can be seen as restorative or threatening.

What does a place hold? The image/picture, the memory of a place, the actual materials from a place.

Reading The Earth participating artists:

Wilhelm Neusser “considers the construction of space in painting and looks at examples from different art historical periods. Landscape painting in particular focuses on the illusion of depth, luring the viewer into the imaginary world beyond the picture plane. But what if things are getting in the way? Like a door frame, a curtain, a tree?”

Stephanie Anderson says “Before the camera, artists were the interpreters of the visual world, taking oral and written descriptions of known and unknown flora and fauna and giving them form. This endeavor required a good deal of artistic license, a mixing of the true with the imagined that sometimes involved the coexistence of incompatible elements. Such artificial constructions of nature reflected the changing ideas and ideals concerning the environment, and my own drawings and paintings within this tradition, often consist of scenes common to all living things – building shelter, gathering food, caring for young, and dealing with conflict and threat. They are moments outside of reality, but still recognizable in our current time as artists continue to bring into focus the real, the possible, and the fantastic around us.”

Joerg Dressler expresses these ideas: “Our modern-day relationship with nature has evolved in many ways. As more of us than ever before live in cities and work indoors, our encounters with nature have become increasingly rare and brief… and seldom do we have the opportunity to experience it with all our senses. We encounter scenery only while driving by it, or through the lens of a camera, or accompanied by music plugged into our ears. And most often, I find we experience the natural wonders outside our doors through photography, movies, and digital content produced by others—a second-hand experience of something powerful. In addition to my personal experiences in nature, I draw inspiration from diverse sources. I see images or clips of cloud formations, waterfalls, mountains, icebergs and waves…or traditional landscape paintings by masters such as Claude Lorrain and Caspar David Friedrich. As I translate the experience of viewing nature into paintings on canvas, I also strive to reconcile the opposing elements and forces of nature that impact my personal world, and the world around me.”

For Nicole Duennebier “Natural phenomenon—dermoid cysts, fungus, invasive flora/fauna—and my love of candied, old-master opulence have a constant presence in my work. Through

painting with attention to detail, I’ve become accustomed to the fact that nature itself, or anything living really, never totally allows you to have a perfectly idealized experience.

Everything is always spewing, dripping, rotting a little. Similar to 17th century still-life paintings with those vibrant lusty fruits that show the light fuzz of beginning decay, I don’t see these works as allegorical depictions. To me it is more the realization that both the rot and the fruit are a textural attraction in their delicacy; both take the same concentration and care to paint.

The classic chiaroscuro darkness in still-life is a primordial soup, a pool of black that springs forth a decadent, and sometimes horrible, growth. I’ve always been attracted to the obsolete idea of spontaneous generation, all that awful stuff popping into existence for no reason. The paintings reflect this; they are more spontaneous generations than firmly rooted in actual living organisms.”

According to Steve Imrich “Extracting details from daily routines to form new connections is at the heart of why I paint. Memories and observations from my background as a pilot form the basis for many investigations and help synthesize observations about an expanded context sometimes missed from eyelevel or horizon vantage. Most of my work also explores the interaction between nature and the designed world in some form. I’m particularly interested in how the details of weather, light, and elevation change perception, and how these factors contribute to the specific character of a place or experience.”

Related resources:

Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama

https://www.artforum.com/print/199508/simon-schama-s-landscape-and-memory-33110

https://charlierose.com/videos/23733

In some of her work Michelle Stuart use the earth itself, the soil from a particular place.

Visionary artist Charles Burchfield imbues his subject matter with a sense of the strange, the fantastic.

Anselm Kiefer express the idea of the homeland, destroyed, resurrected in his enormous installations.

Mountains and the rise of landscape

https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/exhibition/mountains-and-the-rise-of-landscape/