Human/Nature

curated by Narong Tintamusik

Featuring work by artists Lynné Bowman Cravens, Molly Valentine Dierks, Karla García, Doug Land, and Madeline Ortega.

Human/Nature, exhibiting at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, features DFW based artists who use sculptural and immersive means to illustrate our humanity through images of nature. The floras and faunas of this world often remain still and quiet, while observing us from the distance. Curated by Narong Tintamusik, Artists Lynné Bowman Cravens, Molly Valentine Dierks, Karla García, Doug Land, and Madeline Ortega plant their own seeds containing personal life experiences. They draw nutrients from the ground touched by mankind and merge with its ever-present influences. The greenery that surrounds us is reflective of our shared physical and psychological climates. Nature serve as metaphors for societies’ past and present and the act of flowering foreshadow our future.

Emerging from the soil are environments of diverse themes and construction. Viewers will notice biomes that are absorbed with effects of time, memory, migration, identity, mortality, and vulnerability. Drawing from materials both man-made and natural, clay, printed fabrics, soil, insects, and plastic coalesce seamlessly in the works. The biological communities represented here allude to the intricate web of self and the world we live in.

Doug Land is a sculptor who is inspired by the functions and forms of Nature. He is Currently pursuing a MFA in Sculpture from TCU. Working in multiple mediums, he is considerate of the material’s source, its function, its lifespan, and the effects of time on the work. As a result, some works are made to be permanent (static), while other works are ongoing (perpetually replenished), and some are ephemeral (like a spring day). To Quote him, “We are not above nature, and we are fools to think that we are anything more than one bad hamburger away from becoming human flavored compost!”

 

Garden Rituals: Eternally renewed, 2020

For this installation, I was drawn to the idea of compost as a symbol of rebirth. Being drawn to the ritual burial practices of the late Egyptian kingdoms, I created my own set of Garden Rituals that  took inspiration from these ancient historical practices, in order to help me process the overwhelming death that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic. I created a tomb for a character, “Ghost Eye the Gardener”. The materials used in this installation ritual were ceremonially burned and sealed with scented beeswax. Coptic jars were filled with crop seeds and the “body” was live composted on a bed of leaves. Ritualistic “burial spells”, written in garden hieroglyphics, were hung on the wall above the burial objects. My intention was that the Coptic seeds would be resown and federalized from the remains of Ghost Eye.

3D virtual walk through of the show

FWCAC