BE THEREEye on EnvironmentPresented by Sherry French Gallery February 27, 2008- March 29, 2008Reception: March 1, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pmJanice Anthony, John Briggs, Arthur Chartow, Virginia Daley, Fred Danziger, Carolyn Edlund, John Morrell, Peter Polites
-- Kenyan Proverb With an “Eye on Environment,” the Sherry French Gallery is delighted to present a show about balance. The realist landscape paintings in this exhibit address the fragility of ecosystems, the coexistence of humans and nature, and the formal concern of compositional harmony. Our artists have traveled from the Alaskan tundra, to Maine, to the marshes of Savannah to bring tidings of the wonders of the natural world. Their images linger long in our subconscious – reminding us why we take the city bus and recycle our soda bottles. They paint the stakes. Every mountain scene raises them. The exceptional landscape artists in “Eye on Environment,” include Janice Anthony, John Briggs, Arthur Chartow, Virginia Daley, Fred Danziger, Carolyn Edlund, John Morrell and Peter Polites. As painters, they are particularly concerned with mark making. Much of their work toys with the marks humans leave on the land. Morrell piles trash in the foreground of his landscapes; Brigg’s drives tractors through his flowered fields. Sherry French has curated environmental shows in the past that have traveled to over sixty museums and appeared on Good Morning America. During the Florida museum tour of “Expedition: Everglades – River of Grass,” Sherry chaired a fundraiser for the National Audubon Society in celebration of Earth Day. The Sherry French Gallery hopes that the works in “Eye on Environment” spark research into preservation and respect for something greater than the self. Most importantly, we stress the relationship between nature and the next generation. The future of the environment is in their hands and if they are not kicked out of doors and forced to find their place in it, then we have lost the link between ourselves and our land. The global climate is changing. The vast majority of scientists recognize global warming and attribute it to human activity. Increased temperatures and tropical storms are already affecting our daily lives and will continue to grow in scale even if we could stabilize fossil fuel emissions immediately. The ozone layer that deflects much of the rays from the sun is thinning, aggravated by increased greenhouse gases, aerosols and deforestation. Humans cut down an average of 60,000 km2 of primary forest each year, about the size of Ireland. The clearing of secondary and other forests is much greater still. The loss of biodiversity from this and other factors such as pollution, fertilization, introduced species and overdevelopment affects us to a great extent. Nearly every major fishery around the world has been significantly depleted, a striking example being the former cod haven – the Outer Banks of Cape Code. Scientists estimate that in the last one hundred years, humans have been responsible for over one thousand times more extinct species than the natural rate. The ecosystems these creatures once inhabited are teetering off balance, affecting the quality of our water supply, the amount of CO2 released into the air and the resources we depend on. In addition to examining the relationship between humans and the environment, this show addresses the connection between art and science. Ars sine scientia nihil est. (Art with out science is nothing.) In this era of specialization, we tend to keep these methods of analyzing our world separate. Yet, the Sherry French Gallery has found that our voice is stronger and more widely heard when art and science are combined. “Eye on Environment” hopes to convey environmental information in a way that appeals to intellect and not to fear. The ecological undertones of many of the works substantiate the art, while the creative presentation broadens and animates the facts. Peter Polites takes us back to the cesspools of our species’ youth. The brackish mixture of land and water stretching from north Florida to North Carolina is a natural purifier of water and the beginning of the food chain in this part of the world. Polites’ focus is the raw materials that birthed us – spartina grass, the mirrored pools in high tide and the mud gray banks when the tide recedes. Like a pilgrimage back to our birthplace, the work puts in sharp relief how far we have come and quietly suggests a simpler option. Virginia Daley traveled to the Asseteague Wildlife Refuge and the Alaskan artic to gain inspiration for her work in this exhibit. Her paintings entice you to travel, both into the space described via your imagination and out into the physical world to experience the stunning locations in person. The landscape painter Carolyn Edlund has a deep empathy for the plant life and creatures of the natural world. Her paintings celebrate their beauty and lament their fragile state in one fell swoop. She recognizes the irony that human progress too often means the loss of that which sustains us. “I would like to raise awareness amongst our children, to raise them to be conscientious caretakers of both the land and the creatures inhabiting it. My paintings say this is what was and what can be with proper stewardship.” Some artists have narrowed their focus to a single issue. The Tinklers have chosen one particularly relevant to artists and collectors – the proper treatment of the mineral cadmium. If the issue is unfamiliar to you, instructions and explanations are scrawled all around the frame of their piece. The painting is a brilliant panoramic landscape, lit in cadmium oil hues, while the frame indicates how the mineral should be controlled with the use of natural fertilizers, recycling and strict control of smoke stack emissions. Arthur Chartow paints the region of the Rust Belt where industrialization, globalization and environmental struggles collide. When the dust settles, Chartow wanders through deserted factories and razed industrial sites - some paved with malls, others abandoned as “brown fields,” still hot with heavy metals, asbestos and PCBs. His paintings are a fitting mixture of luminosity and dark weightiness. Chartow presents us with a picture of our declining industrial era, in the spirit that its death will leave room for the birth of a new landscape. He writes, “In the end, global climate change will force us to alter our habitual wanton consumption of the Earth's resources, and the time may come when viewers of these paintings will wonder at the structures they depict.” “I like a landscape that has architectural drama to it,” says John Briggs of his Florida scenes. He paints the Everglades and the surrounding areas because they are war zones of valuable ecosystems vs. overdevelopment. In contrast, Briggs’ compositions are chosen for abstract and formal reasons. The combination of technical skill and environmental knowledge in Briggs’ work serves to transport the viewer to the wetlands and transform the issues from abstraction to living, breathing reality. The paintings in “Eye on Environment” inspire conservation while acting as a mode of preservation. Well after the earth has shifted and we have permanently altered its surface, these images will preserve the scenes that once inspired us.
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