Structure of Nature | Nature of Structure Catalogue

Douglas J. Eng: STRUCTURE OF NATURE

NATURE OF STRUCTURE Exhibition Catalogue

Photographs and text © Douglas J. Eng, 2021 Text © Ylva Rouse, 2021 Text © Shana Dickler, 2021 All rights reserved Printed using MagCloud Rev. 3 – 08/05/2021 Book # Cover: Detail from Fog in the Key of Tree

2

Douglas J. Eng: STRUCTURE OF NATURE | NATURE OF STRUCTURE

This catalogue was published for the exhibition Structure of Nature|Nature of Structure at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL July 9, 2021 – January 2, 2022.

Supporting Sponsor: Jennifer and Joe Duke Support for this exhibition was made in part by the City of Jacksonville, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the University of North Florida

3

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Introduction ......................................................................................5 Artist Statement.................................................................................6 Exhibition Works ........................................................................ 7-35 Florida’s Nature .................................................................... 8-15 Human | Nature.................................................................. 16-19 Forest Structure ................................................................... 20-25 Present Nature .................................................................... 26-35 Installation Views ...................................................................... 36-39 About Doug Eng ..............................................................................40

4

INTRODUCTION Ylva Rouse, Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville The exhibition Structure of Nature | Nature of Structure is a retrospective of the work of Doug Eng. An engineer and software programmer by education and trade, Eng, a Jacksonville, Florida Chinese-American native, turned fulltime to his lifelong interest in the visual arts more than 10 years ago and has established a reputation for unique imagery and meaningful public projects, exploring issues such as family heritage, home and identity, climate change, and environmental awareness.

Eng’s fascination with how nature is ordered, systematized, and physically configured; and how man replicates this in the patterns, rhythms, and spatial configurations that occur in architecture and other man-made objects, has been the object of his work, driving a philosophical inquiry that today feels more urgent than ever. The relationship of man to nature has been a constant in the history of art. It is perhaps most distinctive in Oriental art, where the sophisticated conceptions of the nature of the cosmos in early Chinese philosophical and historical texts would influence Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, to develop an understanding about nature that described man as a crucial component of the natural world, and advised to maintain a close relationship with nature for optimal moral and physical health. These belief systems would reach the Western world in the 19th century, with artists such as Caspar David Friedrich developing Romanticism’s subjective, emotional response to the natural world in his paintings.

But it is to Ansel Adams, the great American landscape photographer, that we must look for the tradition that Eng continues in his work. Adams, in his autobiography, already then decried “the loss of connection to nature in the course of industrialization, and the exploitation of this great land’s natural resources,” something that we in Florida are living today in so many ways. Like Adams, Eng seeks to remind us of our essential connection with nature, bringing to light the parallels between the need to preserve the endangered wetlands and forests of Northeast Florida, with our search for a common identity as human beings.

5

ARTIST STATEMENT When asked to do a retrospective, a review of one’s work is in order and in many ways this becomes a review of one’s life. What is important, what is unique, and what is interesting, sorts things out quickly, and one is left with a collection of disparate pieces.

There are several common themes running through my work, and these are easily correlated to my culture, upbringing, and education. As time passes, I find my interests at any moment narrowing, making it easier to know what to do.

I’ve always found comfort and fascination with the natural world, and within that realm, I’ve developed an obsession with trees. I’m sure this has everything to do with my education as a structural engineer as trees are the embodiment of structure. Forests as groups of trees develop their own visual properties and characteristics. Cities as groups of buildings have parallel relationships on many levels, and so the way I see natural and man-made landscapes are similar.

Using a language of trees, I’m able to express many thoughts about what is important to me. This took many years and many photographs to realize. It is an ongoing revelation. I am very concerned about our consumptive behavior and the implications for the environment. Everything is connected. What happens to the trees, the birds, and the fish, happens to us. I do not make a judgement on the behavior of others for I share the guilt in the state of our planet. But it is through a recognition of beauty and magnificence of nature through photography that I am able to find my place in the world and reconcile the issues we face.

We live in a very challenging time. Things will not and cannot change unless we take action. The first step is to enact change within ourselves. After viewing the exhibit, I hope you see our world a little differently, are curious about something you have learned or seen, and are inspired to make progress on the things that are important to you.

Doug Eng July, 2021

6

EXHIBITION WORKS

“As you look and listen, there is life everywhere.”

Throughout Eng’s career he has captured the beauty of the natural world, but no natural space has captivated him as much as his native home of North Florida. Eng exudes his love of North Florida’s landscape in the series My Real Florida and Streaming South.

Emphasizing the need for the preservation of Florida’s forests and wetlands, Eng has worked with organizations such as the North Florida Land Trust, an organization who protects and preserves Northeast Florida’s historic and ecologically significant lands.

Eng aims to transmit the feeling of therapeutic tranquility that these forests and wetlands surrounding his home bring to him, in the hopes that current and future generations will cherish and protect these important landscapes as well.

7

FLORIDA’S NATURE

A World Above

Charged for Life

St Marks National Wildlife Refuge – St Marks FL, 2019 From the series My Real Florida 138x138 wallpaper print

Mandarin Park – Jacksonville FL, 2017 From the series My Real Florida 20x30 pigment print

8

Pines in Profile

A Morning's Grace

Julington-Durbin Preserve – Jacksonville FL, 2018 From the series My Real Florida 20x30 pigment print

Lochloosa Lake – Lochloosa FL, 2017 From the series My Real Florida 20x30 pigment print

9

10

Mixed Hardwoods

Cypress Bough

Lofton Creek – Yulee FL, 2015 From the series Streaming South 20x30 pigment print

Deep Creek – Hastings FL, 2014 From the series Streaming South 30x20 pigment print

Morning Mist

Passage

Big Davis Creek – Jacksonville FL, 2014 From the series Streaming South 30x20 pigment print

Thomas Creek – Jacksonville FL, 2015 From the series Streaming South 20x30 pigment print

11

Cypress at Ringhaver Park Ringhaver Park – Jacksonville FL, 2018 From the series My Real Florida 192x36 backlit media on lightbox

12

13

Tree Squared

Turnaround

Big Talbot Island State Park – Jacksonville FL, 2018 From the series Florida’s Nature 54x36 pigment print

Jennings State Forest – Middleburg FL, 2018 From the series Florida’s Nature 54x36 pigment print

14

Untouched

Shroud

Old Spanish Trail – Cypress FL, 2019 From the series Florida’s Nature 54x36 pigment print

Eureka Boat Ramp – Fort McCoy FL, 2020 From the series Florida’s Nature 54x36 pigment print

15

HUMAN |NATURE “The city and its buildings are like a forest with its trees.”

In both cities and forests individual participants, each with unique characteristics, define a collective whole. The visual exercise is framing views of the collective so that the arrangement becomes the subject as opposed to an individual structure.

Eng uses visual parallels between the human and natural world, through isolation using a long lens and removal of context. By minimizing sky and ground level evidence, the scene is abstracted and the structures, with their forms, textures, and colors, become the palette for the image. He highlights the connection between the two realms to show that they are not actually separate but instead two parts of a whole, the world.

Valley of the Goblins Goblin Valley State Park UT, 2012 140x28 pigment print

16

Cityscape Victoria's Peak, Hong Kong, 2012 87x28 pigment print

17

Boston 081, 2010 San Francisco 052, 2013 Hong Kong 1289, 2012

Armstrong Woods 025, 2012 Jedidiah Smith 037, 2013 Armstrong Woods 044, 2012

18

New York 070, 2013 New Orleans 108, 2010 New York 142, 2013

Thunder Creek 351, 2016 Jedidiah Smith 035, 2013 Jedidiah Smith 073, 2011

From the series New Growth/Old Growth 12 – 24x36 pigment prints on Dibond

19

FOREST STRUCTURE

Tactile Wilderness Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park – Forks WA, 2013 From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 158x20 pigment print

Oak Hammock 2 Ocala National Forest – Ocala FL, 2014 From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 136x20 pigment print

20

Fog in the Key of Tree – Panel 1, Panel 2, Panel 3 Cary State Forest – Bryceville FL, 2016 From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 3 – 107x17 pigment prints

21

Language of Tree – Dialog 1

Language of Tree – Dialog 2

Various locations and dates From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 60x40 pigment print

Various locations and dates From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 40x40 pigment print

22

“A ‘forest’ is conceptually unconstrained and without bounds.”

By creating a long window into the scene with no sky/foreground elements, Eng implies the infinite. He replicates what our normal field of vision would be on a trail. The forest is presented consistently as an objective composition within this frame. Eng uses this format in multiple locations, subjects, and type (old growth and managed forest) to determine if there is a visual signature unique to each condition. This appeals to his engineering disposition to decode the chaos that is the forest. This code becomes apparent only when viewing multiple tree forms as they become the notes, chords, rests, and tempo of a musical score.

Language of Tree – Dialog 3

Our culture of consumption continues to have a devastating effect on our forests. As a witness to the miraculous place any forest can be, Eng’s hope is that this project may in some way, contribute to the wisdom to conserve, manage, and protect these living resources.

Various locations and dates From the series Decoding the Infinite Forest 60x40 pigment print

23

Color of Morning

Cary State Forest – Bryceville FL, 2016 From the series The Forest re:Framed 236x20, individual pigment prints on Sintra

Reprisal Big Talbot Island State Park – Jacksonville FL, 2017 From the series The Forest re:Framed 134x22, individual pigment prints on 14 sliding panels

24

Enlightened Forest Cary State Forest – Bryceville FL, 2016 From the series The Forest re:Framed 7 – 60x40 front/back pigment prints on vinyl fabric

25

PRESENT NATURE

Flotsam Mexico Beach FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 207x138 wallpaper print

26

“… an altered landscape, perhaps changed for generations” Sublimity is an ever-present sensation in Eng’s photography, not just as a sense of beauty but also as the awe-inspiring power of nature. In Fractured Forests: The Hurricane Altered Landscape of Florida’s Panhandle, Eng documents the devastation of the region five months after a Category 5 hurricane, Michael, ripped through the area in 2018.

After researching potential locations, Eng returned 3 times to the region, covering backroads within a 50-mile corridor from the Gulf Coast to the Georgia border. Most of the area is dedicated to industrial forestry, agriculture, and livestock. The series captured the land in its still fractured state, as if the storm happened yesterday.

Broken

Maddox Rd – Marianna FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 36x54 pigment print

27

Blowdown

Headstone

Ocheesee Landing Rd – Sneads FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 24x18 pigment print

Cypress Cemetery – Grand Ridge FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 24x18 pigment print

28

Path of the Eye

Leaning Forest

CCC Road 12 – Kinard FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 24x18 pigment print

FL 71 – Kinard FL, 2019 From the series Fractured Forests 24x18 pigment print

29

“Needless to say, as a dominant species, hemlock has been eradicated” - Will Blozen, Nov 1, 2007” The great hemlock forests of the Appalachians are gone. Infestation by the wooly adelgid was slow, beginning in 1952 from horticultural imports, and then spreading steadily reaching a tipping point in the early 2000’s, then rapidly consuming most of the forested areas tree by tree, grove by grove.

Witness to Extinction is a eulogy to the passing of the Eastern Hemlock. Eng photographed dying trees in 2009 and returned ten years later.

His observations show the progression of decay and extent of the damage, and asks us all to consider the effects of widespread extinctions on our future.

Diptych 1 Nantahala, 2019|Cataloochee, 2010 From the series Witness to Extinction 53x40 pigment print

30

Diptych 2

Diptych 3

Newfound Gap, 2019|Newfound Gap, 2012 From the series Witness to Extinction 40x53 pigment print

East Fork Overlook, 2012|Eask Fork Overlook, 2019 From the series Witness to Extinction 40x53 pigment print

31

“… an apocalypse frozen in time and hidden from view” In September 1968, the waters ceased to flow on the Ocklawaha River. Over 9000 acres of cypress floodplain forest were drowned when a 16-mile reservoir became part of the ill-fated Cross Florida Barge Canal. Nixon halted construction in 1971, but the dam persisted, becoming a symbol of the longest protracted environmental conflict in Florida’s history.

Every 4 years, the level of the reservoir is lowered for 4 months to clear surface vegetation, creating a limited opportunity to observe the original river channel, freshwater springs, and a haunting landscape of dead tree stumps – hundreds of thousands of them.

Eng documented the river drawdown in his most recent series Drowned Forest of Florida’s Ocklawaha River, capturing something of the earth but not of this time and place – otherworldly, imagined, infinite, and disturbing. One feels death among the syncopation of trunks, like graveyard tombstones.

Approach to Blue Springs Ocklawaha River – Interlachen FL, 2019 From the series Drowned Forest of the Ocklawaha 147x18 pigment print

32

Old Growth 331

Marker 71

Ocklawaha River – Interlachen FL, 2019 From the series Drowned Forest of the Ocklawaha 30x20 pigment print

Ocklawaha River – Interlachen FL, 2019 From the series Drowned Forest of the Ocklawaha 30x20 pigment print

33

"I found my way out of that forest. I’ve never experienced a natural place this."

Perhaps a premonition of things to come, Eng leaves us with this series from the Okefenokee swamp, Ogeche Lime trees lining the banks of the Suwannee River, the twisted, tortured shapes conjuring images of a Bosch scene from the Garden of Earthly Delights. We are left to question our own place in the natural world.

The River Styx Okefenokee NWR, Suwannee Sill – Fargo GA, 2019 From the series Forest of Dark Dreams 54x36 pigment print

34

Spillover

Growth

Okefenokee NWR, Suwannee Sill – Fargo GA, 2019 From the series Forest of Dark Dreams 27x40 pigment print

Okefenokee NWR, Suwannee Sill – Fargo GA, 2019 From the series Forest of Dark Dreams 27x40 pigment print

35

INSTALLATION VIEWS Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville 3rd Floor Exhibition Gallery

36

37

38

39

ABOUT DOUG ENG A Jacksonville, FL native and resident, Doug Eng is a photographer and installation artist whose visual interests are urban and natural landscapes. Eng’s recent projects focus on raising awareness of endangered wetlands and creeks in Northeast Florida by encouraging residents to explore their surroundings. “Finding and connecting with your own sacred places is an important part of caring about where you live.” An engineer and software developer by education and trade, Eng is pursuing a lifelong interest in the visual arts and has established a reputation for unique imagery and meaningful public projects.

Eng received his BS and MEng degrees at Cornell University studying structural engineering and architecture. This combination of arts and science germinated his interests in natural forms, systems, and design. Photography became the ideal medium to support his studies and document his particular view of the world.

Replicated Self

Self Portrait, 2016 30x34x12 Mixed media

Eng was selected three times as a Critical Mass Finalist and his work has been exhibited widely in the southeast. His projects Streaming South and On Fertile Ground were featured in LensWork magazine, and Eng has won numerous IPA Awards for nature and fine art images. His work is held in several public and private collections throughout the Southeast. Eng’s studio is located in the CoRK Arts District in Jacksonville.

For additional information, print sales, and exhibition availability, please visit https://dougeng.art or @dougengphoto.

40

41

S T R UC T U R E OF NA T U R E | NA T U R E OF S TR U C TU R E https://dougeng.art @dougengphoto