Karen Rudd, Last Stand: Cedar, recycled cardboard, lower section: 48.5 by 98 by 96 inches, upper section: 18 by 30 by 30 inches, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.
Michael Brophy, Beaver Trade, oil on canvas, 78 by 83.5 inches, 2002. Boise Art Museum permanent collection.
than a bit complicated. In her catalog essay, Clark-Langager identifies 11 categories characterizing the environmental issues faced by the region and touched on by its artists. These are not neatly delineated—there is considerable overlap since any particular artist’s contributions often address more than one of these issues. This explains why different works by several artists are found in various parts of the show. Trying to keep track of it all can be a daunting task, necessitating reading the ample wall texts and artist statements. While BAM has streamlined the process by not posting every category, this is not an exhibit for viewers in a hurry. But it is time well spent. Whether or not a particular piece strikes your fancy, these are works that look both directly and obliquely within us and examine how our routine habits—even with the best of intentions—have an unforeseen impact. It is a message which says, in the words of the catalog’s guest essayist, William Dietrich, “technological cleverness has outrun stewardship’s wisdom.” That we are by no means entering the den of angry environmental activists but rather a realm of sensitive, yet provocative art is further affirmed at the entrance of the show’s first gallery. There is a serenity to much of this work and a palpable sense that there is more to see than initially meets the eye. The promise of discovery invites you to take your time with the art and view it with an open mind. For example, Karen Rudd’s timeless sculpture Last Stand: Cedar strikes the keynote with its mixture of strangeness and familiarity. Rudd’s meticulous re-creation of a preserved old-growth cedar stump recently discovered in WWW. B OISEWEEKLY.C O M
western Washington is a memento mori made more poignant by the fact that she has sculpted it in densely layered corrugated cardboard, an end product of the forest industry. A large, severed section of tree suspended above is a surreal symbol of the systematic dismantling of ancient forests. A kindred spirit of Rudd’s with a prominent presence in the exhibit is Oregon painter Michael Brophy, whose dramatic canvases also reference the region’s depleted natural resources. Brophy is a strong painter; his canvases are often filled with off-center compositional quirks, partial views and anonymous traces of human encounters. In one of his three works in the show, the 2004 Tree Curtain, heavy drapery parts to reveal a clear-cut wasteland. It is not as incongruous an image as you might suppose. Think of those mountain highways throughout the Northwest where a fringe, roadside stand of trees has been left to shield a viewer’s eyes from the desolation beyond—a Potemkin Village of greenery geared to soothe eyes and conscience. It is interesting how the landscape tradition in painting is used in these environmental critiques through the unconventional use of color, which in the hands of these artists becomes an innovative formal element. Philip Govedare, in his oils on canvas Excavation #3 and Flood, depicts aerial scenes in which the land and sky blend together in a mix of pollutiontainted natural and unnatural hues. No factories or cars are in sight, and the culprit could just as well be the “unintended consequence of the human impact on a fragile environment” as the calculated machinations of industry. In either case, they make for haunting panoramas. The mixed-media paintings of
Cynthia Camlin, Melted #10, watercolor, ink, acrylic, 60 by 52 inches, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.
Canadian Margaretha Bootsma, on the other hand, leave no doubt who is to blame for environmental blight. Her shoreline views with murky, shallow waters and heavy skies have a dirty haze over them, like looking through a filthy window. In Construction II, a mammoth industrial structure is parked right in the water’s edge, just beyond the bathers and strollers. Yet particularly disturbing is the fact these weekenders seem totally oblivious to the state of things, as if the presence of such conditions no longer phases them. It is difficult to know what to make of Adam Sorensen’s electric landscapes, in which normal mountains, water and vegetation are rendered in the most artificial, Day-Glo-like colors, another instance of familiar grandeur and alien effect. Sorensen describes his technique as “a liberal misuse of color,” and the result resembles another poisoned, chemically altered natural habitat. His Hide Out, with its dark cliffs and high-key colors, is a forbidding, strangely compelling scene, like stumbling into Mordor on acid. Particularly impressive are Cynthia Camlin’s large-scale watercolor/acrylic/ink paintings on paper from her Extremities series, which are both above- and below-surface portraits of arctic ice, broken from the ice pack and adrift at sea. Movingly executed, they float as the proverbial “tip of the iceberg,” contrasting the minimal remnants of exposed ice to the immense submerged ice forms attached below. They seem almost mammalian, like whales flashing their humps as they cruise below the surface. They are some of the most eloquent images of the exhibit.
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