Unnatural Terrains

Unnatural Terrains

Elisa Berry Fonseca and Anne Rynearson focus on both the forming and deconstruction of our natural (and not so natural) environments

IC:  “Pearls”, acrylic and metallic media on canvas, by Anne Rynearson

 

Exhibiting artists Elisa Berry Fonseca and Anne Rynearson both touch on the notion of what happens when man-made industry (manufacturing, unsustainable agricultural practices) and the natural landscape collide.

 

Elisa Berry Fonseca​’s 3-dimensional “landforms” are created from manufactured material in vibrant colors rather than natural formations. Nevertheless, they still conjure up a sense that they are very much organic, forming over many years like any other earthly stalagmite or stalactite. 

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“Viewers become the center of fantastical landscapes made up of delicate lines and risky color combinations. The energetic gestures are the result of my desire to see the landscape come alive, as if the forms were living beings transformed by their encounter with art.” – Elisa Berry Fonseca

 

Likewise, Anne Rynearson’s large-scale paintings also combine the natural with the unnatural both in terms of subject matter as well as their creation. Rynearson tackles a very real and difficult problem: the normalization of unsustainable agricultural practices which she feels has had consequences for both the natural environment and the regional rural community. As a child who grew up on a Minnesota farm, this topic is also very personal. By using various source materials (maps, photographs, and other references of actual places) Rynearson goes about the process of deconstructing and then re-constructing a whole new environment. 

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“I envision my imagery as depictions of invented nature or described as alternative landscapes, abstracted allusions of nature as a referent of a cultural-historical mode of representation; a reflexive symbol of its chronic state of displacement, of it tenuous existence in our modern age and perhaps a lackluster substitute for itself—reduced to fragmented gesture.” – Anne Rynearson 

 

April 20 – June 1, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, April 20, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Artist Talk: Tuesday, May 22, 7:00 p.m.


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