Visual Arts
In a startling variety of ways, contemporary artists are exploring the relationship that our species has to its planet. We have aggregated some of this very intriguing work below. If you have suggestions for works to add to the gallery, please contact us.
Works can also be viewed in portfolio view.
2014-15 Curator: Julia Olson
Richard Long is a British land artist. His formative piece A Line Made By Walking, was made in a field in Wiltshire where he walked backwards and forwards until the flattened turf caught the sunlight and became visible as a line. He photographed this work, and recorded his physical interventions within the landscape.
South Bank Circle brings together unevenly shaped pieces of slate in the geometric structure of a circle, and illustrates a theme common in Long’s work: the relationship between man and nature. As he has explained, ‘you could say that my work is … a balance between the patterns of nature and the formalism of human, abstract ideas like lines and circles. It is where my human characteristics meet the natural forces and patterns of the world, and that is really the kind of subject of my work’ (source).
Dutch artist Marjan Teeuwen creates incredible installations from the demolition found in abandoned houses. Using architectural debris from a building’s rooms, she transforms the spaces into spectacular sculptural works by meticulously layering the collected fragments into aesthetically-pleasing arrangements. The series, titled Destroyed Houses, highlights Teeuwen’s ability to turn destruction and neglect into something beautiful. The Tetris-like placement creates order among chaos and gives the works a monumental, awe-inspiring presence coupled with a feeling of tranquility. (source).
Soheyl Bastami is an Iranian sculptor who creates work out of everything from sand to iron and wood. One of his more recent pieces, Extreme, is a combination of complex gears entwined into one simple and meditative form. Viewers are immediately invited to contemplate the relationship between the soft, slouching human figure, perched precariously on the top edge, as it relates to the hard, rigid materials of the machine. By creating the strong juxtaposition between the human and the unique arrangement that supports the figure, Bastami has constructed a poetic commentary on how the modern world has become quite reliant upon machines.
His large sculpture, Shepherd sits on the Modarres Highway in Tehran, contrasting rural and urban lifestyle (source).
Yusuke Asai, a Japanese artist who paints with basically anything he can get his hands on (tape, pens, leaves, dust and mud…), was asked to travel to the Niranjana School in Bihar (east India) to create a mural on the walls of a classroom. Asai unveiled a sprawling, immersive mural titled “Earth Painting; The Forest of Vows.” To create the piece, Asai sourced only locally available materials which included 7 different types of soil, cow dung, water and straw (source).
Mitsuru Koga is an artist who emulates nature. Working with leaves, rocks, and driftwood, he adapts his methods for each medium. DriftWood (2007) brought Koga back to the beach, where he imagined the excavation of fossils from an imaginary time—a prehistoric era when the earth was ruled by the imagined Branchasaurus, Stormasaurus, and Driftwood dinosaur. “I wish to create an intermediate bridge between nature and human beings,” the artist explains. Sea Stone (2008) is a collection of tiny vases, carved and polished from collected pebbles. The artist found inspiration on a beach in Chigasaki, Japan, where he was born. “As the way the waves abrade stones, I scrape them with careful attention.” (source).