Endangered Exhibition Booklet

ENDANGERED EXPLORING CALIFORNIA’S CHANGING ECOSYSTEMS JAN 11– MAR 8, 2020

ENDANGERED

EXPLORING CALIFORNIA’S CHANGING ECOSYSTEMS Every day dozens of species go extinct around the world due to habitat alteration, pollution, and climate change, among other causes. While extinction is a natural process, the current rate is alarming. As we live through the sixth mass extinction, it is critical to conserve endangered species around the world and protect them from extinction.

California is a biological hot-spot, a region with rich biodiversity, and has more imperiled plants and animals than any other region in North America. In the past twenty years the number of rare, threatened, or endangered plants and animals in California has risen by 60%. The twenty-one artists in this exhibition bring awareness to some of the threatened and endangered species in California and create a dialogue around adapting to a changing environment. This exhibition is organized into three sections: Air, Land, and Water.

Air, features artists’ commentary on air pollution, and its impact on humans, animals and insects. Concern about climate change informs much of the work related to Land, particularly how ecosystems from the coast to the desert and mountains are effected. For Water, artists confront the results of pollution and rising CO2 levels in the ocean.

This exhibition explores how endangered animals, insects, and plants can be seen as a metaphor for human fragility. Human well-being is inevitably linked to the health and biodiversity of our planet. Adverse changes in our ecosystems should signal a warning to humanity.

The growth of climate activism is happening around the world, notably championed by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. This exhibition encourages dialogue and promotes action for reducing carbon footprints and advocating for the health of our planet.

Danielle Deery Guest Curator

Cover Image | Sasha Koozel Reibstein, BarelyThere (lilium pardalinum), 2017, Porcelian, flock, encaustic, 7” x 4” x 5”

Second Right | Stephanie Bedwell, Wayfinding, 2015, Polymer clay, 11” x 17” x 13”

Top Left | Jeanne Dunn, East of Eden, 2018, Collage on museum mat, 40” x 30”

Third Right | Kira Carillo Corser, Sea Changes Carbon Climate Connections, 2017, Mixed media on watercolor paper, 30” x 40”

Bottom Left | Michael Field, Niland Marina County Park, Salton Sea, 2002, Digital photograph inkjet print, 30” x 40”

Bottom Right | Michelle Kurtis Cole, Protect, 2019, Sculpted glass and crystallized glass, 15” x 12”

Top Right | Kim Abeles, Fire Line, 2017, Mixed media, 10.5” x 32” x 16”

KIM ABELES

Kim Abeles is a multi-disciplinary artist whose communitybased projects explore biography, geography, and environment. Abeles’ sculptural suitcases for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains were created in collaboration with female firefighters at Camp 13. These educational valises address fire prevention, national forests, and our relationship to nature.

STEPHANIE BEDWELL

Stephanie Bedwell’s expressive mixed media bee sculptures are a poignant response to the consequences of toxic chemicals used in our environment. Amid the sharp decline of the honeybee population, Bedwell’s work takes inspiration from the symbolism of bees and the devastation resulting from industrial agriculture and increased pesticide use.

KIRA CARRILLO CORSER

Working with artists, scientists, and concerned citizens, Kira Carrillo Corser developed Sea Changes: ACT!, a project that educates the public about changes destroying our oceans. Her collaged photography and Undersea Experience installation bring greater awareness to the effects of climate change, plastic pollution, and overfishing on ocean ecosystems.

MICHELLE KURTIS COLE

Inspired to help find a solution to the decimation of coral reefs around the world, glass artist Michelle Kurtis Cole’s Coral Regeneration Project utilizes transparent glass, cast into familiar coral shapes, as a material to recruit and reproduce coral.

JEANNE DUNN

Jeanne Dunn’s landscape paintings and photomontage convey the mental and moral climate of the time, using trees and forests to express our complex global interdependence. She vigorously smears, brushes, scrapes, pastes, removes, and revises the painted areas on her canvas to emphasize both the benign and menacing forces affecting the health of the natural world.

MICHAEL FIELD

Michael Field’s photographs document the cycles of abundance and scarcity found in the Southern California desert. Focusing on both past and present, Field’s landscapes reveal a dry desert full of beaches, islands, and man-made features along the shorelines of ancient Lake Cahuilla and Salton Sea.

STACIE BIRKY GREENE

The central focus of Stacie Birky Greene’s work considers the impact of human consumption and climate change on the natural world. Alarmed at the consequences of excessive pesticide use, she creates portraits of endangered and recently extinct birds on reclaimed and upcycled materials.

ADRIENE HUGHES

Adriene Hughes looks at water deprivation in the high desert regions of Southern California. Using infrared technology, Hughes captures the cellulose of the leaves and the sugar content in the trunk of the tree. A dark pink hue signifies a tree containing more sugar, while the whiter areas indicate dehydration.

QINQIN LIU

Qinqin Liu is a scientist and artist whose current work reflects her concerns about water, climate change, and ecosystems. The watershed beauty of the mountain snow and its paths to waterways inspire her mixed media paintings, capturing a depth of feeling regarding the harm to our natural world.

JEAN LOWE

Jean Lowe is recognized for her paintings, sculptures, and installations that comment on contemporary society in humorous yet cerebral ways. Lowe’s largescale landscapes comment on booming housing developments in San Diego and their threat to open space.

MARGARET NOBLE

Margaret Noble’s multimedia slot machine offers escapism, mysticism, and a chance depiction of natural and technological entities intertwined. Inspired by environmental, psychological, and philosophical research, this interactive experience reaches for the uncanny scope of time and consequence to tell the story of human naiveté.

SASHA KOOZEL REIBSTEIN

Interested in the convergence and metamorphosis of reptiles, flora, and desert landscapes, Sasha Koozel Reibstein’s work speaks to the interconnectedness between animals, humans, and the environment. Her serpents are endangered snakes, symbolically referring to “human evil” and relating to our culpability for the current environmental crisis.

Top Left | Stacie Birky Greene, Endangered California Least Tern, 2017, Ink and watercolor on artist-made paper, 6” x 9” Middle Left | Qinqin Liu, Troubled Water, 2019, Silk screen monotype and mixed media, 17” x 23” Bottom Left | Jean Lowe, A Child’s Guide to Understanding Climate Change, 2011, Enamel on papier mache, 8.5” x 9.25” x 2.75”

Top Right | Gail Roberts, March Hybrid, 2018, Oil on birch panel, 30” x 40” Middle Right | Debb Solan, Jellies Forever, 2013 – Ongoing, Recycled plastic, Variable dimensions Bottom Right | Anna Stump, Jaguar Terrarium Skins Flying over the Mexico - U.S. Border, 2019, Mixed media on paper, 25” x 18”

GAIL ROBERTS

Gail Roberts’ works combine magnified details of flowers from her garden to create hybrid images of exotic, alien-like species. Although plants have hybridized for thousands of years through natural selection, her paintings allude to the prevalence of biotechnology and genetic modification.

BRIDGET ROUNTREE

Bridget Rountree’s abstract landscapes are inextricably linked with the human figures collaged into the topography of her work. Her process—suspending ink, linear action, and mistakes on paper—is in a perpetual state of becoming, an interplay of ruin and beauty, and a provocation to deeply consider our relationship with one another and the environment.

CATHERINE RUANE

Interested in the life cycle of a Joshua tree, Catherine Ruane’s work illustrates the delicate cooperation between a tiny moth and a flower for the plant’s survival as a species. The smaller, rounded drawings rotate around the central image, referencing a clock that measures the time span necessary to birth new life for the tree.

DEBB SOLAN

Debb Solan’s work seeks to bring awareness to the pervasiveness of plastic pollution and to advocate for our oceans. Using recycled grocery bags, cling wrap, and other plastic materials, Solan creates plastic jellyfish that mimic the lightness and fluidity of jellyfish in water.

ANNA STUMP

During a recent residency in Mexico, Anna Stump created a new body of work using images of the jaguar to address environmental issues surrounding habitat destruction and hunting. Traditionally migrating between Mexico and California, the jaguar has now vanished from the United States due to the consequences of human interference along the border.

CHERYL TALL

The surreal sculptures of ceramic artist Cheryl Tall express the artist’s deep concern for our environment.

Her symbolic and expressive use of figures and animals explore the interconnection between humans and the natural world in relation to issues such as ocean preservation and endangered species protection.

JEN TRUTE

Driven by her insatiable fascination with environmental degradation, Jen Trute’s surreal paintings evoke awareness of the human impact on nature and the fragility of our global ecosystem. Approaching her subject matter with scientific detail, Trute’s dystopian narratives reference the natural sciences, climate change, endangered animals, and art history.

RUTH WALLEN

Ruth Wallen is a multimedia artist whose work is dedicated to encouraging dialogue around ecological and social issues. Wallen’s complex photomontages of trees address her concern for threatened and endangered species in California’s forests.

REBECCA WEBB

Exploring the relationship between color, light, and human intervention, Webb’s series of hyper-realized cloud formations depict the unearthly beauty of the dusk-light sky. A red sky requires aerosols in the atmosphere, which are solid or liquid particles suspended in the air originating from pollutants due to natural processes and human activity.

Top Left | Jen Trute, Sunbathe Barbie At Bombay Beach, 2005, Oil on linen, 38” x 46”, Collection of Oceanside Museum of Art, gift of Laurie Aker, David Batt, and Valerie Batt Middle Left | Rebecca Webb, Sky Over Felicita County (Rayleigh’s Scattering Law) (detail), 2017, Digital archival print on hahnemuhle photo pearl 310, 26” x 32” Bottom Left |Catherine Ruane, Dance Me To the Edge, 2017, Graphite and charcoal on mounted paper, 74” diameter Near Left | Cheryl Tall, Mermaid with a Mirror, 2019, Architectural clay, slip, glaze, oxides, 37” x 14” x 18”, Collection of Renée Richetts

Top Right | Bridget Rountree, Speechless, Image 1612, 2019, Ink, charcoal and mixed media, 17” x 34” Far Right | Adriene Hughes, Idyllwild, California, 2018, Infrared HD video Middle Right | Ruth Wallen, Endangered California Frogs and Toads, 2000, Paper, 4” x 4” x 12” each Bottom Right | Margaret Noble, Please Wait, I’m Not Done with My Diatribe, 2017, Mixed media installation, 6’ x 9’ x 68”

ALSO ON VIEW

FINDING HEAVEN

Exhibiting Artists

JAN 11 – MAR 8, 2020

Andrew Connelly

IN HELLHOLE CANYON

Cathy Carey

Matthew Dimakos The Friends of Hellhole Canyon formed as a nonprofit volunteer organization in 1999, shortly after the San Diego County Department of Parks and Recreation acquired Hellhole Canyon Open Space Preserve. They advocate for the preservation and enjoyment of open space using their 2600-acre preserve. They also host public presentations aimed at raising awareness about local plants and animals, and serve as volunteer trail patrol to support educating the public about the value of conservation.

The Friends also work to acquire and conserve ecologically important space, including the addition of nearly 600 acres to protect an essential wildlife corridor that allows for the free movement of many species. Preservation of land and wildlife corridors is vital to preventing genetic isolation, which can lead to extinction.

The canyon is emblematic of San Diego County’s position as the most biologically diverse county in the nation, and served as inspiration for the fourteen artists in this exhibition. Their work reflects on the beauty of open space and the life inhabiting the natural landscape of the canyon.

The art in Finding Heaven in Hellhole Canyon encourages introspection, revealing the complex and symbiotic relationship between humans and land.

Dennis Ellman Joe Garcia Elaine Harvey Dori Johnsen David Miller Bonnie Rinier Barbara Scharnau Julie SchneiderLjubenkov Tom Tiedeman Gloria Warren Sandy Zelasko

Image | Sandy Zelasko, California Jay, 2019, Photography, 20” x 10”

Generously sponsored by:

STUDENT WALL For the Student Exhibition, artists from grades six through twelve were invited to submit artwork that explores ideas or techniques inspired by California’s environment.

Students were asked to interpret California’s landscape, climate change, endangered species, pressing ecological concerns, or their own relationship to nature.

Participating Schools Bella Vista Middle School

Mission Hills High School

Del Dios Academy of Arts and Sciences

Rincon Middle School

Del Lago Academy

San Pasqual Middle School

Hidden Valley Middle School

Valley Center High School

Mission Middle School artcenter.org/museum // 800.988.4253 // 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido, CA 92025