ALTERED ENVIRONMENTS from Pyramid Atlantic
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On View: October 15–November 13, 2022
ALTERED ENVIRONMENTS shares colorful and sumptuous prints, cut paper pieces, and installations addressing the issues of marine bio invaders. Works by North Carolina-based artist April Flanders are at the center of this exhibition, flanked by a print portfolio featuring 24 additional artists from the United States and Canada. Collectively these works address the breadth of the aquatic environment - a complex and fragile ecosystem under daily threat from multiple forces.
“ALTERED ENVIRONMENTS creates a conversation between art and science to highlight the issue of marine bioinvaders; species that have expanded beyond their natural range in the aquatic environment,” explains Flanders. “We do not fully understand the ramifications of globalization. One consequence is the uninhibited exchange of plant and animal organisms across natural boundaries … I create work where viewers are confronted by the destructive organisms and globalized landscapes they are complicit in generating. In this time of rapid environmental flux, my work confronts a complicated issue.”
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the installation Filter. Filter takes up two gallery walls and measures over 26 feet. The installation comprises over 2,000 tiny, individually cut monotypes in sea hues. This installation addresses two aquatic invasive species; zebra and quagga mussels, which have invaded the Great Lakes and are moving inexorably across North American freshwaters. These colonizing filter feeders disrupt the food web, damaging fisheries and creating unhealthy algal blooms. This piece reflects the fragility of this once abundant ecosystem by contrasting the delicate nature of plankton and native algae with the vigorous life cycle of these prolific mussels.
Flanders is a studio artist living and making in the mountains of Western North Carolina. A keen naturalist, her work has been featured in solo and group shows at museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including the Katzen (Washington, D.C.), Center for the Book Arts (New York), and the Global Print International (Douro, Portugal). Her work is in many public collections, including the Asheville Museum of Science, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Tucson Museum of Art. Flanders holds a Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University and she has taught printmaking for fourteen years at various universities nationally and internationally. Currently, she is a professor of studio art at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
ARTISTS FEATURED IN THE PORTFOLIO:
Alanna Baird, Lorraine Beaulieu, Mary Sherwood Brock, Patterson Clark, Tallmadge Doyle, Beth Fein, April Flanders, Sheila Goloborotko, Melissa Harshman, Marty Ittner, Fleming Jeffries, Anita Jung, Irena Keckes, Eveline Kolijn, Lauren Kussro, Ann Manuel, Sandra Murchison, Michelle Rozic, Marilee Salvator, Rachel Singel, Tanja Softic, Julie Wolfe, Elizabeth Jean Younce, Ann Zellhofer and Caroline Zellhofer
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This exhibition is made possible in part through support from Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George’s County.
