Nature
February 21 – March 27, 2004
Josh Blackwell
Johanna Burke
Erik Bluhm
Matt Dilling
Gail Dawson
Mari Eastman
Todd Hebert
Portia Hein
Aaron Morse
Richard Stein
Marc Swanson
Nature is a shifting presence in contemporary life. In increasingly urbanized countries like United States, where the majority of the population lives in cities, nature is a constructed reality — one that not only fills in the physical space between human-made structures, but also plugs the gaps in an array of pop culture representations.
For artists today this presents a problem. The experiential tradition of working from the beauty and majesty of nature in its environs — that inspired artists from Zhu Da to Poussin — often seems incommensurable with modern urban experience.
The artists in this exhibition approach nature from a variety of angles. It can be something organized and observed in the studio; a point of reference from which to examine a media-saturated culture; the subject of dreamy projection; and the focus of sometimes questionable historical interpretation.