Untitled 57, 2023 44″ W x 60 “H, ink and collage on paper, Photo by Etienne Frossard
Mend-to make (something broken, worn, torn, or otherwise damaged) whole or sound by repairing, to set right, make better, to progress toward recovery.
The drawings in the larger room of the gallery all focus on plants used in a process known as phytoremediation. Each of these plants is able to absorb and transform ecological degradation in water and earth. Sunflower, mustard, vittata, pennycress, poplar, phragmite, indiangrass, and willow are variously used to remediate nitrogen, phosphorus, radiation, lead, cadmium, trichlorethene, and more. The drawings explore the contemporary alchemy of this important transformative biological process in a time of ongoing environmental crisis.
The drawings in the second room of the gallery are self portraits which have been cut into weft, which is then woven into a warp cut into a landscape. Each landscape image depicts a scene of global warming: a melting glacier, dead trees, and more. The structural matrix of the woven paper connotes the inextricable connection of each individual to the larger fate of our one warming planet.
Sunflower: Radioactive waste, Zinc, Copper, Cadmium. Poplar: Tricloroethylene, Chlorinated Solvents. Mustard: Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Nickel, Willow: Arsenic, Cadmium, Zinc, Copper, Lead, Nickel. Indiangrass: Agrochemical residues. Phragmite: Nitrogen and Phosphorus in water. Pennycress: Cadmium, Zinc. Water Lettuce: Copper, Iron, Mercury. Vittata: Cadmium, Arsenic
