Unnatural Nature

Unnatural Nature Zoe Friedman Stephanie Garmey Clarissa Gregory Christine Neill Lynne Parks Marcia Wolfson Ray Olivia Rodriguez

THE SILBER ART GALLERY Goucher College Athenaeum

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When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unnatural Nature features the work of seven local female artists: Zoe Friedman, Stephanie Garmey, Clarissa Gregory, Christine Neill, Lynne Parks, Marcia Wolfson Ray, and Olivia Rodriguez. Each artist is inspired by nature in one way or another, yet their work is far from natural. At first glance, Zoe Friedman’s work appears to be large-scale Rorschach images configured according to value scale. However, upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that each value is actually fragments of differing landscapes that, when combined, create expansive fictitious environments. In Stephanie Garmey’s work, paper evokes the natural world, whether transformed into animal forms, as seen in her tactile sculptures of monkeys and porcupines, or as the foundation for her exquisitely detailed graphite drawings of leaves. Clarissa Gregory’s stop-motion animations are formed with manmade items: Blue yarn becomes a tangled river lapping at a paper mache shoreline, while sculpted insects inhabit the dioramas. Much like a scientist intrigued by botanical processes, Christine Neill collects, studies, then abstracts various types of flora by layering photographic images, prints, and watercolor to create her mixed-media paintings. Lynne Parks’ photographs of dead birds demonstrate the devastating impact the built environment has on winged animals. Marcia Wolfson Ray gathers, deconstructs, and reassembles organic materials that give way to elegant geometric and highly textural sculptures, often bringing to mind natural habitats for both humans and animals alike. The intimately scaled sculptures of Olivia Rodriquez pull the viewer in, begging to be examined closer. Miniature flies devour sap, and slimy slugs gnaw on mushrooms—each piece making visible a fleeting moment of decay. Drawing from diverse aspects of nature, the artists in Unnatural Nature transform various materials and bring to life the vitality of the living world.

Laura Amussen, curator

Zoe Friedman

Multimedia artist Zoe Friedman isolates images of nature and assembles them to form large geometric landscapes. Through repetition and inversion, extensive patterning reveals the hidden geometries always present within organic forms.

Primarily working with installation and video, and drawn to mystical elements and methodical systems, Friedman explores how pattern can evoke a sense of the sacred.

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Water Landscape, 2012 mixed media 96” x 90”

Stephanie Garmey

Stephanie Garmey is inspired by bits of lichen, pieces of feather, snakeskin, boxes of insects, wasp nests, fossils, and a collection of antique mounted animals that adorn her home and studio. Garmey’s art reflects her memories of many years of walking the woods and researching exotic environments, and it considers humanity’s small place in the much larger context of the world’s natural wonders.

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Porcupine, 2011 cut paper, wax, print 18” x 24” base

Clarissa Gregory

Clarissa Gregory’s drawings, stopmotion animations, and dioramas are an invitation to wander, hike, dig, and climb through visual pathways. In her work, which echoes nature’s mystery, areas of growth intermingle with decay along an unpredictable path. walk-through-forest-enterwater-build-fort, 2012 still from stop-motion animation

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Christine Neill Nature has long been the subject of Christine Neill‘s mixed-media paintings and prints. The transparency of watercolor and the digital processes she uses express the unseen states of nature. She uses light and shadow, vivid and rotting color, and familiar and menacing shapes as a reminder that all individuals have a deep-rooted connection to the earth and that similar biological processes bind the natural and human worlds.

Stephanotis Split, 2011 watercolor and archival ink jet on paper, two panels 29� x 43.5�

Courtesy of Goya Contemporary

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Lynne Parks

Self-taught visual artist Lynne Parks works in photography and assemblage. In her work she reveals a deep concern for the plight of migratory birds. In showing these portraits taken during the spring 2012 bird migration, Parks hopes to bring awareness to the millions of birds that die yearly in collisions with buildings when confused by urban lighting.

Common Yellowthroats, 2012 photograph 12� x 20�

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Marcia Wolfson Ray

Marcia Wolfson Ray finds material in fields, marshes, by the side of highways, and in vacant city lots. The materials Ray collects sometimes sit in her studio for years: Some petrify and become stronger, while others disintegrate to dust. This gives her a hint of what she can build with them to convey to the viewer an intensity that transcends words.

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Metamorphosis, 2013 Pine wood, marsh elder, vines 80” x 30” x 30”

Olivia Rodriguez

Olivia Rodriguez explores the microviolence and slow decay of nature by focusing on naturally occurring and manmade domains that are generally overlooked. She is inspired by the beauty that occurs in a subject after it has been spent on its primary purpose. Whether a mushroom, a bee, or a discarded chicken wing, these things move through human consciousness barely noticed and reveal stories and secrets in their period of transition.

Sweet Erection, 2012 mixed media 22”H x 8”W Courtesy of Curator’s Office

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Unnatural Nature Zoe Friedman Stephanie Garmey Clarissa Gregory Christine Neill

Lynne Parks Marcia Wolfson Ray Olivia Rodriguez

February 5 – March 24, 2013 ARTISTS’ RECEPTION

Friday, March 1, 2013, 6-9 p.m.

THE SILBER GALLERY

Goucher College Athenaeum DIRECTIONS Baltimore Beltway, I-695, to exit 27A. Make first left onto campus.

GALLERY HOURS 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tuesday – Sunday 410-337-6477

The Silber Gallery program is funded with the assistance of grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of Maryland and the NEA, and the Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Sciences.

www.goucher.edu/silber

13338-J1839 02/13

The Silber Gallery is free and open to the public.