Nature Trail
Gary Kachadourian, Curator
Nature Trail is a one-room exhibition of twenty-five
artists where the goal is to have the work, as a group,
create an environment similar in experience to walking
a nature trail. The idea of the exhibition was
to include multiple works which are rooted in the observation
or experience of nature. The works in many cases
are not literally about nature but evoke different elements
one may choose to experience when walking. Some
experiences would be to walk a trail as a specimen hunter/collector,
to visit specific natural sites, to experience
a complete natural environment, to see how different
elements interrelate in nature or to use the linear
aspect of the trail to understand natural mapping structures. The
artwork in the exhibition can be categorized relative
to these ideas.
Works which fit into the category of specimen hunter/collector
are two fragments of larger works by Laure
Drogoul. One
is a series of cast rubber skins from the work “Evidence
of Fairyland.” The other is a large opening
panel from the installation “Nature Trail/Spook
House” which has rows of photographs of animals
killed on the road which become a review of living and
dying in nature though the backdrop is asphalt. The
thirty-two paintings by Sonia Denise
Tassin are part
of an ongoing body of work where each painting begins
with an object found in a specific location. Through
the painting process they become a kind of artist’s
journey in which the original object becomes the center
of a personal narrative. The urban sidewalk in
Linda Day Clark’s photograph of a storefront is,
in this context, a study of the layering of ground covering
which is equivalent in both environments.
Stephen Lee and Beverly
Ress also work with the collection
and recording of specimens. Lee’s work is
one of a group of woven straw sculptures based on botanical
drawings from Captain Cook’s journeys. Ress’s are from a large series of drawings of natural
specimens all drawn to scale on the same size paper with
some objects filling the page and others just minor points
on a large white sheet. Jann Rosen-Queralt’s sculpture,
part of a larger installation, is a large ball covered
in feathers and foam that originally represented one
star in a constellation configuration placed in a reflecting
pond. Alone it becomes a mysterious fragment with
no clues to its larger context.
The image of the specific natural site exists with a
number of works such as Allyn Massey’s piece
made of rubber bladders, water and water pumps in a steel
frame which burbles much like a natural spring. Pam
Thompson’s work recreates a tree trunk
using a cast rubber skin made from molds from tree bark. Maren
Hassinger’s single line of wood scraps
strung from floor to ceiling deals with the verticality
of the forest and her wire rope and concrete sculptures
evoke the living rooted form. In other works like Jack
Livingston’s the site is represented as
a large non-figurative painting which can be looked at
as an accurate representation of the multiple layers
of life in the shallows of a pond.
In Jan Razauskas’ piece famous
natural sites are meticulously reproduced as drawings
on white rubber erasers placed in a container. Jennifer
Lynn Stewart Watson has built what is essentially
a machine which strains flour which may be looked at
as a metaphor for the ongoing processes of change in
nature. Joyce J. Scott’s “Man
Eating Watermelon” relates to the farm site ruins
on many trails in its use of the rural African American
stereotype of the watermelon.
The idea of the trail as a linear path is shown literally
in Tom Miller’s flora and fauna
pictograms which were commissioned to be used for a marker
system on the Gywnns Falls Trail. Others like Western
Cell Division’s hypodermic needle mapping
project is like a Boy Scout trail project but instead
of mapping erosion or fauna this project follows the
trail of the urban hypodermic needle. Similarly The
Tinklers have a chart for understanding the
origins of objects one finds which is a kind of grade
school guide map for finding icky things and their cut
outs of Paul Bunyan and trees from a performance nod
to the folklore of exploring new land and unrestrained
consumption. Teri Reub’s piece
is a sculpture based on a site-specific project she made
for a trail in British Columbia where the viewer was
conveyed stories of lose and mourning at selected points
on the trail via an electronic device in their backpack.
Another group of works represent the trail as a way
of experiencing a total picture of nature. Lyle
Kissack’s painting is an observation on
perceptual vision in a natural environment where a wooded
landscape is partially obstructed by a toned paint overprint
created with bubble wrap. Carl Clark frames
the natural experience from the soldier’s point
view in two photographs that span a twenty-year period. A
single leafless tree in a blue fog in the first photograph
is replaced by an American soldier’s helmet and
foot surrounded by trees in the second. Darrell
Wilcox enters nature as the idealistic hunter
entering the environment and having it turn on him and
make him fight for his life. Daniel Sullivan’s eight
drawings are pseudo-scientific dissections of the mysteries
of the forest with man facing a presumed alternate intelligence
on the other side of nature.
The final category would be a study of interrelated
objects. D. S. Bakker’s work is a diorama,
in his words is a study of “beauty,” which
is a sickly arrangement of artificial flowers and Christmas
bows in an artificially lighted box. Fred Collins builds
a diorama about information overload, which parallels
the brain and computer microchips and has the Unabomber
and his cabin in the woods as a major element. Tom
Dixon’s instructional piece on trapping rabbits
with a snare is part of an ongoing body of work where
the rabbit has become a mythic creature overseeing every
aspect of the artist’s life. Dan Van Allen
builds a series of religious objects from old bones built
in a very loose and natural way.
In the end this exhibition is an experiment in collecting
a group of works and placing them closely together in
a space to see how they read as a whole and individually. In
most cases the works were not made specifically for the
theme and the artists who were invited to build new works
are not artists one would necessarily think of for this
subject. In a sense the hope is simply to have
the viewer walk a trail of artworks with the final read
being as inconclusive and complex as it would be on a
trail.
In closing, I would like to thank Villa Julie College
and Gallery Director, Diane DiSalvo, for their support
during the development of this exhibition. Their
continued commitment to maintaining an exhibition space
of this quality is of real importance to a continued
and healthy art community in Baltimore.
D. S. Bakker
Crescendo. 1998
Wood, glass and ecstasy, 14” x 34” x
13”
Carl Clark
Army Life. 1980
Cibachrome print, 14” x 17”
Nature. 2000
Gelatin silver print, 20” x 24”
Linda Day Clark
Untitled. 2000
Color photograph, 20” x 16”
Fred Collins
Infotech! What’s Your Modem. 2000
Mixed media, 24” x 36” x 24”
Tom Dixon
The Path, the Gate and the Game. 2000
Mixed media, triptych, 20” x 48” total
Laure Drogoul
Highway Panel from Nature Trail/Spookhouse. 1989
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Homunculus Skins from Evidence of Fairyland.
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Maren Hassinger
When the Time Came, There Were No Leaves. 1988
Wire rope and concrete, three units, variable dimensions
Totem. 2000
Wood, 14’9” x 6” x 6”
Lyle Kissack
Half Cancelled Landscape. 1999
Acrylic and watercolor on paper, 16” x 20”
Stephen Lee
Banksia Intergrifolia. 2000
Woven straw, 18” x 12” x 12”
Jack Livingston
Fishing with Mr. Burroughs’ Cane. 1996
Mixed media, 96” x 108”
Courtesy of Gomez Gallery
Allyn Massey
Ripe. 1999
Rubber bags, lead, pumps and nylon, variable dimensions
Tom Miller
26 pictograms for a trail marker system on the Gwynns
Falls Trail. 1998
Ink on paper, 11” x 8 ½” each
Commissioned by the Trust for Public Land
Made possible by a grant from the Maryland State Arts
Council
Jan Razauskas
(need title.) 2000
Pencil on eraser and mixed media, variable dimensions
Beverly Ress
Baby Rabbit. 1996-2000
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Placenta.
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Rabbit.
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Big Stick.
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Moth.
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Big Leaves.
Colored pencil on paper, 30” x 22”
Jann Rosen-Queralt
Alpha. 1998
Copper, sponge, feathers and Styrofoam, 40” diameter
Teri Rueb
Documentation of audio portion of “Trace: a memorial
environmental sound installation.”
Yoho National Park, British Columbia. 1999
Cairn I. 2000
Glass, duratransparencies and aluminum lightbox, 26” x
20” x 25”
Joyce J. Scott
Man Eating Watermelon II. 1988
Beadwork
Collection of Tom Miller
Daniel Sullivan
Dreamland. 2000
Mixed media on Arches, 96” x 40”
Sonia Denise Tassin
Quabbin Reservoir Series #2. November
1999 – February
2000
- The odor of roots of burning plastic smells no differently
today.
- The skull revealed the speed of the last rainfall.
- Shimmers in the distance gave clues of the towns
past activities.
- The skin of seasons left a protective patina that
defined the passing of time.
- The charred remains of acquisitions defined status.
- Torn pink lace and the fingerprints of soiled hands
revealed their passion.
- The smell of baking ham evoked the taste of green
in his mouth.
- Broken crocks stained with beets lined the trail
near the reservoir.
- The settlement became identifiable as a result of
their shadows.
- The sum of his life was reached by equating that
he used the same belt to hold up the same pants.
- The path of a turtle knows no certain speed.
- At eleven o’clock everyday she stopped for
a deep breath, cake and tea.
- The sweat from her brow left a days labor upon her
handkerchief.
- Her fingers circled the patterns of the china plate
set before her.
- She was able to momentarily escape the mundaneness
of her life by enlisting the aid of her imagination.
- She used the low light of the lamp to conceal her
blemishes while courting.
- The darkness beneath his eyelids was comforting just
before the amputation.
- Liniment eased her aching joints.
- Spit and spinner baits have worn his line thin.
- They chose to let their wedding china remind them
of their commitment as they sat solemnly eating.
- Catfish prefer cooler temperatures for moving about
the bottom of the lake.
- The routine path of deer can be found out by mapping
their feces.
- Soles of a shoe weather the soul differently than
a bare foot.
- For weeks at the ladies luncheon on Wednesdays they
discussed the bright blue desire of the unnamable.
- Inside her thimble was the odor of days.
- Not until time stopped did it begin.
- He knew his path would take him no farther until
it did.
- The evidence of their presence was at first not clear.
- Milks amethyst container continued to pour long after
it was emptied.
- The discovery occurred slowly, one object at a time.
- Marked by heat, ashes and time the fragment was almost
less than a clue.
- Pinecones continue to fall randomly despite the perfect
planting of the forest.
Beef liver, betadine, iodine, mercurochrome, methiolate,
gentian violet, red clay, ink, ink wash, roofing cement,
beet, food color, bodacious burgundy hair dye, coffee,
spirulina, cochineal, fustic sawdust, logwood, achiote,
paprika, dye, calamine lotion, turmeric, markers, oil
paint stick and pencil, 32 pieces, 24” x 24” each
Pam Thompson
Tree. 2000
Cast rubber and wood, 96” x 24” diameter
The Tinklers
Lumpy/Mushy Chart. Circa 1980
Xerox, 8 ½’ x 11”
Props from the performance of Paul Bunyan. 1988
Acrylic on plywood, variable dimensions
Dan Van Allen
Bat and Ball in Bone Niche. 1995
Mixed media, 18” x 12” x 12”
Menorah. 1995
Mixed media, 12” x 18” x 8”
Monkey Crown. 1995
Mixed media, 6” x 12” diameter
Jennifer Lynn Stewart Watson
series of 9: spot. 2000
Steel and flour, variable dimensions
Western Cell Division
Hypo-stigma Project. 1989 to Present
Mixed media, variable dimensions
Darrell Wilcox
Nature Seeks Gun Control. 2000
Oil on canvas, 36” x
28”
|
