A pioneering art exhibition – Climate Change: Art & Action – opened this week at the University of Rhode Island Providence Campus Gallery. Recognizing that we live at a historic juncture – a time when our decisions shape human destiny, Honoring the Future partnered with the University’s Urban Arts and Culture program to create a public exhibition examining the repercussions of our choices.
Over 75 artworks by fifteen American artists in varied media – painting, photography, digital art and fine craft – explore how our warming climate is dramatically altering land, water and species.
Diane Burko, Visions of the Beaufort Sea III, 2016, oil and mixed media on canvas. Diane Burko’s crackle painting technique captures the frailty of the declining sea ice. ©2016 Diane Burko. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Large-scale oil and acrylic paintings by Diane Burko and intricate paper-cuttings by Lucrezia Bieler highlight the beauty and fragility of endangered glaciers and coral reefs. Stranded children wait for floodwaters to subside in Gary Braasch’s heartbreaking Tuvalu photograph. Eye-catching colors and sensuous forms in Toots Zynsky’s filet-de-verre (glass thread) vessels cry out for attention to the plight of the climate-threatened birds inspiring her creations.
The exhibition powerfully depicts the monumental scale of current climate change impacts. Watercolor prints of melting Arctic and Antarctic ice underscore the urgency of our climate crisis: without effective climate action, their creator Xavier Cortada fears that the watercolors may be all that remains of polar ice. Raging wildfires, thawing “permafrost” soils, and destabilized forests plague Alaska, our fastest warming state, as convincingly portrayed in Peter Handler’s dramatic photographs and Karen Singer’s vibrant watercolor prints. The vulnerability of low-lying tidal Maryland and Virginia to rising sea levels is captured in Lee Goodwin’s mesmerizing photographs.
Lee Goodwin, James River, June Evening, 2013, digital photograph printed on archival paper. High water laps at the base of shoreline trees, a metaphor for the low-lying Tidewater’s uncertain future. ©Lee Goodwin 2013. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Yet the exhibition radiates hope that humankind can summon courage and creativity to rebalance our relationship with the earth. Exuberant digital art by Xavier Cortada celebrates the promise of Pope Francis’ June 18, 2015 call for humankind to come together to address climate change. Nancy Cohen’s intriguing handmade paper pulp creations draw hope from nature’s resilience, manifest in urban waterways that defy multiple human assaults. Dudley Edmondson’s inspiring photographs remind us of our basic human need for contact with nature – and acknowledge outdoor enthusiasts who are role models for young urban people of color.
Xavier Cortada, Brother Sun, 2015, digital art printed on aluminum (artist’s proof), commemorates the release of Pope Francis’ environmental letter addressing climate change. ©Xavier Cortada 2015. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Concrete, inventive ideas for curtailing human impacts on the environment abound in this exhibition. Visionary ecological artists showcase creative storm water management designs, such as Patricia Johanson’s Fair Park Lagoon park and flood control system and Lillian Ball’s WATERWASH® ABC (2011) stormwater management park. Green architecture heralds its promise in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s energy efficient and ecofriendly “living building.”
Resource conservation is tackled effectively too. Using a self-invented “green technique,” craft artist Peter Petrochko carves stunning wood vessels from minimal amounts of wood. And Cecilia Frittelli and Richard Lockwood offer stylish garments from a “zero waste” artist’s studio.
Toots Zynsky, Cinnamon-headed Green Dove, 2018, Filet de Verre (glass thread). The vessel’s coloring is inspired by the dove, a bird species ranked “near threatened,” meaning close to endangered or vulnerable, because its forest habitat has been so greatly reduced by logging and land conversion. ©Zynsky, 2018. Photo courtesy of the artist.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the University is sponsoring several related events. Like the exhibition, the events are free and open to the public. A Gallery Night reception will take place September 19, 2019 from 5:00 -9:00 pm. At 7:00 pm that evening in the University’s Paff Auditorium, the public can also attend a staged reading and post-performance discussion of Lighting the Way, a group of plays commissioned and presented by the award-winning Wilbury Theatre Group.
On September 26 at 7:00 pm in the University’s Paff Auditorium, Rhode Island Public Radio reporter Ian Donnis will moderate a panel presentation featuring URI Graduate School of Oceanography and Coastal Institute faculty reporting on the University’s leadership on climate science research.
The University of Rhode Island Providence Campus Gallery is located at 80 Washington St. The exhibition continues through September 26, 2019.
Lloyd Herman, founding director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery served as Honorary Curator. Fran Dubrowski, Director of Honoring the Future, and Steven Pennell, Director of the Providence Campus Gallery, co-curated the exhibition.
