Pat Hickman and David Bacharach: Reef 2015-2020

Our planet's waters grow warmer and increasingly acidic. 
The oceans fill with non-degradable flotsam, jetsam, lagan and debris. Coral dies. 
Numerous varieties of sea-life could be extinct by the end of this century. And most of us never knew of or have lost sight of this impending disaster.
 

The collaborative work “Reef", by artists David Bacharach and Pat Hickman confronts the viewer with this dilemma.
 
Clusters of plaited steel forms, covered with veined and stained animal membrane, depict slowly bleaching coral, acid stripped exoskeletons of sea-life, oxidizing trash and accumulated debris that covers our beaches, floats in the oceans and stresses the environment to the point of collapse. 
 
“Reef”, a collaborative effort of 5 years duration, continuously evolves as Hickman and Bacharach explore issues presented by their choice of steel skeletons supporting easily damaged animal membrane that breaks if improperly handled; similar to the limestone skeletons and fragile bodies of living reef organisms. This shared sense of delicacy between their work and the ocean's creatures is fundamental to the message of their collaborative work. Is survival possible?

Ursula Schneider: River Map lll 2019

Ursula Schneider’s River Map lll is based on an accurate map of the path of a river in the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska. The painting is a composite of photographs taken from a low flying airplane that was following the river upstream. Though this painting is based on a specific image, it is a construction of experiences as opposed to a representation of the image at a specific moment.

Eleni Smolen: Trout Lily Tonic

Eleni Smolen is deeply connected to and concerned about the natural world. She ascribes to Edward Wilson’s concept of “biophilia,” the word he coined to describe humankind’s deep affinity for nature. The artist believes nature is, as Wilson describes it, “the refuge of the spirit, remote, static, richer even than imagination.” Her painting Trout Lily Tonic, currently on view in the exhibition REFLECT at Buster Levi Gallery is from her early abstract series, Biophilia. https://www.elenismolen.com/paintings/biophilia-beginnings-1998--/1

Grey Zeien: In Noto and In Cortona

Grey Zeien has been photographing walls, kiosks and billboards for the past 20 years.  The layering, scraping off, re-layering and repainting of these surfaces over years, decades and even centuries produce simultaneously a record of localized histories and unique unintentional compositions.  Beyond just recording these compositions, Zeien collages them to comment on a certain time and place of their origins.