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Hybrid
Redline
2350 Arapahoe Street, Denver CO 80205
August 11 – September 30, 2012
Initiated by Rian Kerrane, a native of Ireland,
Hybrid asks fourteen artists to “cross over”.
The artists’ work examines the experience of crossing
the Atlantic in the current political climate while acknowledging
historic influences from each artist’s perspective;
identifying experiences of (dis)placement and immersion in
cultural and social surroundings from either side of the Atlantic.
RedLine provides the first venue for a pair of exhibitions,
the second of which will take place in Ireland, allowing each
artist to engage both with “local” proximity and
“foreign” distance in turn.
At
RedLine, Colorado and Irish artists take on each others' lands
by Ray Rinaldi for the Denver Post, 19 August 2012
right: Maid of Erin mine, Leadville CO
- tea, graphite, ink on paper
Terraphilia
Residency
Colorado
Art Ranch
June, 2012 - Salida CO
View work
created on the residency
The Hybrid work was developed around
the long term ecological impacts of hardrock mining on the
Arkansas river. The bulk of the miners who came out west were
from Ireland and have had a lasting imprint on the culture
here.
right: Stringtown mine, Leadville CO -
tea, graphite, ink on paper |
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Plastic
La Napoule
Art Foundation
"Do You See What I See"
Themed Residency at the Clews Center for the Arts in Southern
France, October - November 2012
Exhibition: Spring 2014 at the Chateau de la Napoule, France.
Dedicated to preserving the legacy of
Henry and Marie Clews and promoting art that serves the greater
good, La Napoule Art Foundation seeks to nurture and inspire
artistic talent, while fostering the creative process as a
means of advancing international understanding. The Fall 2012
residency & exhibition will challenge accomplished artists
to create a work or body of work designed intentionally to
appeal to children. While intended to engage this younger
audience, showcased works will be created with the same technical
expertise, aesthetic rigor and emotional power of fine art
exhibited for adults. The artists’ goal will be to transcend
all ages.
Support for ongoing work created in regards to the
problems presented by single use plastics provided by the
Puffin Foundation
Learn
more about the problem of Ocean Gyres & Garbage Patches
View
work in progress around Plastic
right: Alewives - Blue Whale Family: plastic
collage on watercolor paintings |
Installing work at La Napoule - photo:
Michael
Gadlin
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Nourish
Nourish is a multifaceted project which seeks to
understand the way we grow and consume food.
Starting with the impacts of our industrial
food machine, a series of paintings were created to explore
the environmental consequences of imposing ourselves on the
land. As a counterpoint to the problems caused by industrial
agriculture, solutions are presented through educational works
about developing technologies built around the ideas of sustainable
agriculture. The third arm of this project reflects on the
resilience demonstrated by people around the world who are
finding ways to maintain traditions in the face of a globalization
which tears at the social fabric of our communities.
Grandpa's
Garden
Small scale solutions & emerging technologies
Tales
of Thatcher Gray
A Year in Grandpa's Garden
seeks to educate children with solutions to some of today’s
biggest environmental problems which are caused by the industrial
food machine. This body of work follows the development of
a permaculture garden by Thatcher Gray and Grandpa. Important
solutions stem from growing food in a sustainable way that
involves the next generation. Exploring the importance of
composting, gray water recycling & filtration through
wetlands, habitat construction & maintenance, seed saving,
biodiversity and nourishment, Thatcher Gray learns to be conscious
of impacts we have on our surroundings. Peter T. Leonard (Grandpa)
is a master gardener who focuses on a return to tradition
while incorporating new developments in polyculture, aquaponics
and permaculture. He is writing haiku to compliment the paintings.
The work is available online with expanded explanations and
links specific to the subjects addressed, and may be viewed
at TalesOfThatcherGray.com
May 31 - July 19, 2013: Urban Earth
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts Center, CO
This exhibition highlights the importance of reconnecting
people and their environment through sustainable urban landscapes.
Opening Reception: May 31, 4-8pm
12.12: "It is a charming account of three generations
working together to create a utopian family haven that speaks
to global responsibility"
from An
Artful Adventure in Sustainable Living
by Lyn Bleiler – Eco Source Magazine
10.12: Slow
Food USA delegate to the Terra
Madre conference - Turin, Italy
Terra Madre establishes a space “for those who seek
to grow, raise, catch, create, distribute and promote food
in ways that respect the environment, defend human dignity
and protect the health of consumers” to exchange ideas
and solutions. It promotes solidarity between eaters and producers,
those from the city and those from the countryside, the global
North and the global South. It encourages all of us to be
united in an international, diverse movement rooted in many
different histories, cultures, and communities. Terra Madre
shows the international public that a diversity of people-powered,
values-based solutions can pave the way for better food and
farming around the world.
Synopsis:
Global Perspectives on Localized Food Movements
9.27.12: ISEA2012: Machine Wilderness - Reinvisioning
Art, Technology & Nature.
Featured our high desert Permaculture/Aquaponics
installation around the studio, as well as the paintings that
have grown from the process of building it.
7.12: A Year in Grandpa's Garden - Edible
Santa Fe
Featuring watercolors
on Permaculture
right: Carrot - Bee - Zucchini - Ladybug
with carrot flowers and seeds (detail) - watermedia, tea,
beet & red cabbage stain |
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| REAP
The
Environmental Un-sustainability of the
American Food Machine
Overview
Bitter
but beautiful Harvest
Lee Lee's stark style captures anger and elegance
among environmental degradation.
by Lennie Bennett, St Petersburg Times
Exhibition Highlights:
Natural/Constructed Spaces - The Painting
Center, NY, 2012
Taos Contemporary - The Metro Center for Visual Art,
Denver CO, 2012
Nature:Working! - 910 Arts, Denver,
2011
Vanishing Pollinators - WEAD installation at the
Bioneers Conference, 2010
Art & Agriculture - The Columbia Arts Center,
2010
Extinction - Denver Botanic Gardens, 2009
REAP - C Emerson Fine Arts, St Petersburg FL, 2009
"Lee Lee's silvery gray Crop Circles
provides an aerial view of cultivated agricultural land seemingly
through a rain screen, as though the blurred landscape is
disintegrating beneath us"
- Curatorial statement by Galen
Cheney & Marianne Van Lent for Natural/Constructed Spaces
at the Painting Center, NY
right: Rain - Oil Refinery, Commerce City
(detail) watercolor, conte & oil
Ghost: Abandoned Slaughterhouse - watermedia & tar on
shotgunned collage
Crop: acryllic on canvas |
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Resilience
in the face of Globalization
Guatemala
Starting with stone lithographs of lush forest,
these mixed media works on paper were truck-tracked with fresh
tar, then torn into small squares. They serve as a foundation
that speaks to the situation imposed on the Maya: pushed off
their land and treated like slaves on plantation style agricultural
production facilities owned by multinational corporations.
They fill US demands for cheap commodities which comes at
a severe cost to both people and the environment. The texture
of tar is an echo of the continuing destructive influence
of these corporations. Tar is made from oil which also makes
up the petrochemicals used in the style of agriculture that
is decimating the environment.
Somehow, Mayan culture is not decimated. They maintain an
incredible dedication to tradition, working in harmony with
the environment. Ancient customs are manifested through the
colorful and intricate weavings which are worn with pride.
These portraits are of Mayan women from the highlands market
in Chichicastenango. Exploring a wide range of human emotion
from being weary and hurt to looking forward with hope, the
vignettes are intended to explore the breadth and range of
emotional textures in this community.
Exhibitions:
Dairy Center for the Arts
Our Global Village
May - June, 2013 - Opening reception May 10
2590 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO
Borders & Boundaries
October 2012
Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque NM
Biennial of the Americas
2010 - Denver
right: espera - tar, sharpie, watercolor
& pencil over torn lithograph |
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