Art spotlights the weathering of changes

By Marcy Stamper
    Asked to reflect on how society, and primarily the arts, can adapt to an evolving world, many artists naturally responded with works that attempt to come to terms with the aesthetic impacts of change.
    But other artists in Confluence Gallery’s new exhibit, “Weathering Change,” contemplate the more invisible aspects, conjuring the pernicious effects of genetically modified crops or contemporary cultural attitudes that imbue depictions of nudes with fear and guilt.
    Other artists in the show chronicle human efforts to avert ecological catastrophe. Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele collaborate on a documentary project entitled “Facing Climate Change” to tell the story of global warming through its effect on local people around the world. In a series of lush, beautiful photographs, the two capture nomadic reindeer herders in Finland who help the reindeer migrate with trucks, since the animals can no longer use their traditional routes because of melting ice. Closer to home, the pair spent time living and working with fire crews, where they captured the grace and humanity of firefighting in “The Tinder People.”
    Expeditionary artist Maria Coryell-Martin uses her deft watercolor technique to depict the melting of glaciers in Greenland, the Antarctic and the North Cascades. Her paintings have an austere, peaceful beauty that in some way belies the devastation she is recording.
    Curator Caryl Campbell was interested in the multi-dimensional aspects of change – social, personal, economic and environmental. For instance, wildfires open up new vistas, encourage lush vegetation, and let you see more birds, she said. “The regeneration is fascinating.” Campbell’s co-curator Teri Pieper created photographic multiple exposures that combine pristine scenes with layers that suggest decay.
    Painter Mare Nemeth tackles the spread of change in a group of brightly hued, powerful paintings about the toxic effects of agribusiness and the oil industry on human and animal life.
    Other artists have elected to depict landscapes that have been protected from change – habitats so special that they have been preserved through measures like conservation easements. The grandeur of these landscapes is captured by several artists new to the gallery, including oil painter Judythe Sherwood, who used these protected sites as her vantage point, and Diana Sanford, who celebrates the lushness of the shrub-steppe in pastels.
    Sculptor Dan Brown revels in the availability of found objects (or his own old appliances that have given up the ghost) that can be repurposed in his witty sculptures, a boon during lean economic times, he wrote.
    Accompanying artists’ statements describe the artists’ struggle with and acceptance of change. Ken Smith describes the aftermath of a wildfire: “It is dark and lost – as lost as I felt photographing it,” he wrote, before noting the resiliency of nature.
    Others in the show include painters Michael Caldwell and Sue Marracci, who find sanctuary in the landscape, and photographer Gary Harper, who unearths intriguing patterns in industrial refuse. Different perspectives on fire come from Shelley Rozell, who depicts it in a mosaic, and Cheryl Wrangle, whose canvas almost emanates heat from the intensity of the paint color.
    In the solo gallery, Jeff Winslow exhibits “20 Poets & Painters – A Portrayal,” which pays homage to some of his favorite literary and artistic figures, “who pushed into new areas of discovery and invention.” Winslow uses collage and paint to evoke the styles of these visionaries in his series of portraits.
    Drummond and Steele will give a multi-media presentation on their work at the gallery on Sept. 9.
    Weathering Change is at Confluence Gallery in Twisp from July 31 to Sept. 18. There is an opening reception Saturday (July 31) from 4 to 8 p.m.

“After the Fire” by Ken Smith