Contours
of the Everglades
As artists capture the unassuming beauty of the Everglades, the dynamic essence of this natural environment comes alive through the interplay of line, pattern, and value. This exhibition showcases the collective efforts of AIRIE Fellows spanning multiple years of residency. Across various mediums like drawing, photography, and printmaking, these artworks vividly portray the textures, sensations, and atmosphere of the Everglades.
Curated by AIRIE Creative Director & 2022 AIRIE fellow Cornelius Tulloch, the selection of black and white pieces emphasizes that, even without color, the landscape offers a rich and immersive experience. Through exploration and interpretation, the artists unveil the intricate complexities hidden within the contours of the Everglades.
On Saturday, February 17th, AIRIE held the opening of Contours of the Everglades at the AIRIE Nest Gallery. See event recap.
The Artists’ Works and Statements
Marion Belanger
Easy Chairs, 2004
"This work mirrors the experience of a tourist who approaches the landscape with a romanticized vision of the "outsider." As the harsh reality of the landscape becomes known, a psychological shift in perspective happens. It subverts traditional ideas of "beauty" and instead reveals both the strange overwhelming lushness of the swamplands as well as the heartbreaking brutality that was bestowed upon this land."
Mollie Doctrow
Anhinga at Shark Valley, 2003
"Working in the tradition of Western landscape art, this work represents natural forms and processes accurately and expressively, going beyond documentation. The dominant theme is the drama of the moment, personal interaction with a particular place. The woodcut medium and the carving process suit this expressive depiction. The carved marks have texture and rhythm. While a planned sketch is transferred to the wood, the carving demands a "high dosage" of spontaneity, letting go, and following the movement or feeling for the form.”
Krista Elrick
Florida Everglades Study, 2012
In 2010, artist and activist Kirsta Elrick set out in a Eurovan camper, with her vintage camera in tow, to photograph the birds recorded in John James Audubon's famous survey The Birds of America. What she found instead was a landscape radically altered from the lush and fertile regions described by Audubon, and, through her research into the revered naturalist, a troubling profile.
The Meeting of Pine and Cypress, Old Natchez Trace Trail Milepost 122, 2012
Krista Elrick has more than thirty-five years of experience as an exhibiting artist and activist. She considers herself a catalyst who initiates conversations about environmental change, particularly in the United States. Elrick has worked with scientists and Native peoples throughout her career, all of whom have helped her to continually reframe and refine her ideas about time and narrative.
Cameron Gillie
New Turkey Key(Edition 3 of 100), 2010
"While working as a photojournalist covering environmental stories in the Everglades, I have learned there are no easy answers. All of us are contributing to the pressures put on the fragile ecosystem of South Florida. Therefore, we all have to be part of the solution. Through my art form of photography, I hope my contribution will be to bolster the appreciation of the wild areas that make South Florida so attractive. This mutual appreciation can be the common ground between all sides of the debate over the environmental health of the Everglades."
Rachel Gray
Anhinga and Chicks, 2020
"As someone who grew up in Canadian forests, the overwhelming concentration of life in the Florida Everglades was exhilarating and engaging. Recently, I used photographs I took while in the Everglades to create large-scale murals of Florida forests on the walls of the City Hall Art Gallery in Ottawa. This exploration of the landscape at a distant remove was deeply interesting to me. I continued this project by creating a new series of works rooted in an intimate experience of the Everglades wilderness. The goal of my residency was to deepen my knowledge of the places I fell in love with during my initial visit to the park. I would like to create large-scale works enriched by research into the biology, ecology, and history of the landscape."
Nick Gilmore
Everglades Burnt Pineland/Stump III, 2017
“During my residency, I was fortunate in that the pine Rocklands around the AIRIE Lab had very recently undergone a prescribed fire. The landscape- which initially appeared depressingly void of life- was soon bursting with new life, plants eager to grow under ample sunlight and fresh nutrients provided by the burn, and wildlife exploring the fresh vegetation. I noticed pine stumps that had been cut at some point, usually near the road or buildings adjacent to the pinelands. The pine stumps were charred black by the fire but their rings were intact, a testament to the passage of time and the delicate balance of death (fire) and rebirth (new growth). The texture of the imprint was made by impressing dampened printmaking paper onto the stump and the dark coloration is residual char left by the fire- no ink was used. The wood frame is made of old-growth “Dade County pine” lumber which was salvaged from a demolished Miami home. Rather than simply supporting the print, the frame itself further accentuates the interconnected relationship between the built and natural environment."
Annie Helmericks Louder
Mangrove Tangle, 2005
"A love of the land is at the center of all my interests. Rather than finding narrative through a journalistic listing of elements, I look for ways to create landscape images that are intended to go beyond external experience and convey a deeper internal resonation. Utilizing direct-observation paintings and drawings, I expand these initial experiences into sequential poetry and fiber works. The lengthy process needed to make these pieces gives me time to conceptually abstract and clarify what I want to say. My work often evolves into a number of series- each piece informing the next."
Ailyn Hoey
Cape Sable, 2005
"Internal journeys and questions are common themes throughout my work. Realizing the necessity of acknowledging and expressing that which is within, both the light and the dark, I explore these emotions in my drawings. I arrange the elements in my charcoals to resonate with feelings of place on a very primitive level. Through my work, I seek to capture something larger."
Deanna Morse
Skin, 2021
"Tree textures as a metaphor for the human experience. Tree textures from the Everglades and Michigan interact with aging human skin. The cracks, wrinkles, knots, and scars are an archive of their history. Thick-skinned, thin-skinned. What is most visible. Covering, enclosing, protecting, shedding."
Danni Downing
Joanna Kidd
Passing Through, 2012
“The natural world is full of wonder and beauty, yet many people never go beyond the walls they live within. They forget the grace of a bird taking off, the sway of the grass in the wind, the power of the waves of the ocean. And because they forget, they don’t take care to protect them. Images, though, have power. They can convey and elicit emotion at a glance. I love sharing the way I see the natural world through photography, and hope my images impact the way others value this world.” -Danni
“Visiting the park, I felt overwhelmed by a different sense of time, the geological time over which the park was created and over which it continues to slowly change as water levels rise. Over the course of the residency, I had the sense that my passing through the landscape was just a flickering instant in relation to the timescale over which the landscape evolves. Danni Downing's expressive photographs of park visitors capture their engagement with the landscape. To make the video, I created a panorama using a collage of photographs and video and converted Danni Downing's expressive poses into line drawings that flicker through the slow-moving scene. We are both very grateful for the opportunity to have spent time making art in this very special place.” -Joanna
*All work included in the Contours of the Everglades is courtesy of the Artists, AIRIE, and the Everglades National Park. Banner video is Skin by Deanna Morse. Artwork photography credit: Steven Brooke. Learn more about the AIRIE Gallery here.