This is a blog of ongoing projects starting with: 1) Antarctica -Dec. 2006 - February 2007 2) Work made from the experience 2008 3) Nevada Feb. - Oct. 2008

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

PARIS AND WYOMING

Four works at Galerie Gimpel et Muller:

A print from Antarctica which is in an edition of 50. It schematically represents one day of wind over Antarctica and the flight of an Albatross over 18 months, following the circumpolar current.

Two works using maps and ochre from the mines at Roussillon in the Luberon.

A work called Rhone/Camargue which uses a shed Aesculapian snake skin, found lying in the reeds of the Camargue, superimposed on to paper with flowing mud patterns of Rhone silt.

Albatross 2008
digital print on archival paper of one day of wind over Antarctica, with a hand drawn blue crayon line of the flight path of a tagged Alabatross over 18 months.
97 x 96 cm.


Roussillon I 2011
Rubbed ochre and inserted, dished, woven map
84 x 84 cm



Rousillon III 2011
Rubbed ochre and inserted, dished, woven map
84 x 84 cm




Rhone/Camargue and detail 2011
Rhone mud and snake skin on paper
187 x 50 cm


All works are for sale

Carbon Sink - A work outside for the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

In November last year I made a visit to the University oF Wyoming with a view to making a work there as a part of their Sculpture program. While there I gave a talk and two seminars and met with various people in the faculty. It was during a conversation with the entomogist and nature writer proffesor Feffrey Lockwood that I had an idea for a work. He said that no one really makes the connection between the wealth of the state from the mining and export of oil and coal and the subsequent warming of the planet. This induces warmer winters and allows the pine bark beetle to thrive and as a direct consequence vast tracts of forests in the Rockies are dying. I have seen this at first hand. So I am about to make a large and very black work on the campus, using coal and charred, dead tree trunks in the shape of a whirlpool spiraling down into the earth.


2 comments:

Gardener in the Distance said...

Chris, I wish you all the best in your work at the University of Wyoming. To me, humankind has, in reality, moved beyond the Industrial Age, with its new global intelligence and technologies. Yet we are failing to apply what we now know, and are still, stubbornly, trusting the outdated methods of industry to exploit all there is left on the planet. We are (mis)treating it as an inexhaustible resource, and as if our cannabalistic greed can have no conseqence.

william martin said...

absolutely splendid work.