Elements of Nature: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation
Nature has been a primary source of inspiration for artists throughout history. From the time of the earliest cave paintings artists have continued man's ceaseless dialogue with the elements, drawing inspiration from natural phenomena as well as wildlife. Elements of Nature: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation takes this theme as timely and poignantly relevant considering how severely Louisiana has been impacted by recent environmental disasters. As seen in the works presented, the "elements of nature" are not limited to the ancient conception of earth, air, fire, and water. They also include volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, eclipses, and sunsets, as well as plant and animal life. Many other natural occurrences impact, and are impacted, by our lives on earth. Each artist in this exhibition helps us to view nature through their aesthetic eye.
While the exhibition brings together perspectives from many areas of the world, a number of Southern California artists are represented by responding to their regional environment. Just as the brilliant light in the South of France was essential to the Impressionists, the light in Southern California has profoundly affected the work of California artists from the mid-1960's until today. Ed Ruscha uses the classic western sunset to recall and comment upon the mystique of "Calitopia," and Joe Goode shows us a "torn" blue sky that echoes the environmentally damaged atmosphere it represents. Jack Goldstein gives us a macro and micro view of the world in an eclipse which can only be viewed from a great distance, and the surface of an egg shell seen under great magnification. Lita Albuquerque captures a murky California sunrise, as well as a part of her Antarctica installation that traced the stars onto the ice above the South Pole, while Charles Fine reinterprets frozen ice in layers of translucent wax. Peter Erskine uses a special translucent film to disperse sunlight into a spectrum of colors that fill space with rainbows, while Brian Forrest photographs the Santa Monica Mountains at dusk, a time of day which the artist considers underrepresented in the history of landscape photography. The unique landscape, climate and culture of Los Angeles and Southern California continue to inspire the artists that live and work there.
Some artists in the exhibition are influenced by the physical shapes, forms, and materials found in nature, which they reconstruct in their art. Charles Arnoldi, Zigi Ben-Haim, James Bachman, and Brandon Graving all find strength and beauty in the shapes and structure of tree branches and twigs, which they use directly as a medium to reinvent natural forms and give them a new context. Arnoldi and Ben-Haim reform the found branches into embellished modernist "paintings," while Bachman and Graving incorporate them into their compositions to give the viewer a specific and intensified experience of a particular event. These artists bring nature itself into their works to grapple with the difficulty of representing the immense majesty and beauty of the earth.
Photography is another medium perfectly poised to question our ability to objectively represent nature. Artists such as Dawn Dedeaux and Robert Rauschenberg use a documentary style to focus our attention on the abstract possibilities in nature, while Debbie Fleming Caffery brings a poetic quality to images of the destruction after Hurricane Katrina. Other artists use digital technology to create images that problematize the objectivity of the photographic image. Jay Mark Johnson uses time-based scans to challenge the normal mechanisms of perception of time and space, where Didier Massard constructs his exotic landscapes in his studio entirely from his imagination. Srdjan Loncar goes to extreme lengths to have the representation stand in for the actual object. He uses collages of photographic prints of objects to create reconstructed three-dimensional sculptures that question the true nature of reality.
Some artists work with ideas that relate to the physical laws of nature, using its forms and movement in a spiritual fashion. Isamu Noguchi is able to make sculptures of extremely hard stone that generate notions of fluidity, potential energy, and motion. Andy Moses and Shingo Francis both use concave surfaces to create a seemingly endless horizon line, while Shane Guffogg takes a conceptual approach in a looping ribbon that stands in for infinity. Ryozo Tsumaki is a Buddhist monk who embraces simplicity in his landscape scenes, and Ali Smith uses abstract forms in a petite format and to make an intimate panorama.
Humans have also been inspired, influenced, and artistically motivated by wildlife, a facet of nature that humans relate and respond to in life. These are sometimes homage to the beauty and majesty of these living beings, such as Cindy Wright's forbidden butterfly enlarged to such a degree that it becomes a bold imposing creature, or Elizabeth Shannon's treacherous crocodile covered in gold metal leaf to preserve it in time as a precious object. Roger Brown incorporates a taxidermied wolf into an assemblage painting to comment upon man's inhumanity to nature, while Daniel Dove gives us a ghost image of a mountain lion attacking a reindeer as evidence of the inherent brutality in nature. Other artists render the character of animals, such as in Christoph Schmidberger's super-realistic rendering of a peaceful swan, or Alison Schulnik's heavy use of impasto to convey the intense, alert gaze of a lemur.
The influence and inspiration of the natural world is evident in the works of this international group of artists. Their works are forceful statements regarding contemporary perceptions of the earth and its resources. This exhibition explores the varying ways in which the earth and its elements interrelate with its inhabitants and how that bond has evolved over time. These artists provide insightful perspectives on the environment and allow the viewer to reflect on the complex relationship between man and nature.
