About the Artwork
My visual inquiry on Nantucket explores the changes in character of the color grey as it traverses from the Grey Lady’s port and downtown area to the forests and moors. It is an investigation into what can be unearthed in an ecosystem’s “grey areas,” interrogating the very existence of boundaries until they break character and dissolve. The work includes:
A series of 10, 4”x4” collages made from gray-toned scraps from photographs, “visual data” collected in-situ, and shades of Nantucket-approved colors all cut in shapes sourced from the architecture and nature of Nantucket. Together, the 10 collages mimic a 10-step value scale that depicts the culture-to-nature continuity from Main Street Nantucket to the Enchanted Forest.
An 18”x24” drawing that traverses the same path as the 10-step collages but through a slow, meditative, graphite-gray analysis.
A 7.5”x9.5” collage; a combination of the 10-step collages and source material for the drawing.
Four site-specific Field Marks, collages created from “visual data” collected from looking in two, 180-degree vantage points at four chosen sites (33 Washington, MMA Aquarium, Vestal St. Observatory, Loines Observatory). The collages are sandwiched in acrylic and installed outside at each origin site. These pieces encourage viewers to gaze through from either side of the acrylic portal, converging the two perspectives and inviting reflection on continuity, spatially and otherwise.
When acquainting myself with a place, it is important that I utilize a variety of processes; each material and method provides an alternative means of understanding. By diversifying my engagement with an environment, I can absorb and participate from a myriad of perspectives. The effect of this is not dissimilar to the convergence of vantage points in the Field Marks or the amplification of continuity offered by the "grey" artworks: the multiplicity of approaches makes me more porous, “smoothing out” my own boundary between self and world.
Oika Art is art that carries the intelligence of nature to culture.
Many of us alive today inhabit the arc of a pendulum that swings between material abundance and existential dread. We find our modern condition getting more precarious, and less tenable, with each news cycle.
But a subtle sound is arising from the background cacophony. It is a faint but familiar melody heard only by the most sensitive among us. The more we listen, the more we understand, and the more hopeful we become.
We sense this intelligence as a message from nature, and a relationship that discloses a new but ancient modality for belonging to the Earth. It feels like living in alignment with the creative life force of the universe. We call this feeling Oika. Oika is the ecological intelligence of nature, felt and expressed through humans.
This is an exhibition of four Oika Artists and an ecologist who have been listening and learning from the nature of Nantucket. Each artist brings their own context, experiences and sensitivities. We are inspired by our unique lived-experiences of Oika, but also guided by the deep, ecological principles of Oika as interpreted through the constraints of language.
The blend of scientific insights and artistic expressions in this exhibition are as diverse as the contributors’ individual origin stories. But we are all unified by the aim to heal our people (all people), our places (all places) and our home planet (this planet). We offer these tributes in the spirit of right-relationship to all Earthlings; as gestures to Leopold's Land Ethic, which reminds us;
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” -- Aldo Leopold
— Dr. Rich Blundell, Oika
love is a place
& through this place of love move (with brightness of peace) all places
yes is a world
& in this world of yes live (skilfully curled) all worlds
-- E. E. Cummings
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