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TURNING TIDES July 23 – September 11, 2022 | Reception: Friday, August 12, 2022 7 – 9pm

The new group exhibition in Target Gallery explores the effects of climate change in Turning Tides. Visitors to Turning Tides will experience themes of fear, grief, and resiliency over the looming environmental impacts of human interference.

This all-media exhibition features 20 artists, with 7 from the greater D.C. metropolitan region.

Philadelphia-based artist, Diane Burko juried this exhibition from artists from around the country. Burko’s art practice revolves around environmental awareness, or as she describes, “the intersection of art and the environment,” where climate change is a central theme.

Burko states, “I was blown away by the breadth and depth of material, intellectual, and emotional approaches. Artists investigate, mourn, rage, and practice—practice healthier and more beautiful relations to the planet in the very process of making their work. I feel deeply inspired by this multifaceted engagement. I will surely take some of this vigor towards my own work, and I hope the audience and artists involved will learn from each other and care for each other in our collective struggle.”

About the Juror

Diane Burko works at the intersection of art, science, and the environment with an artistic practice that is devoted to bringing the challenges of climate change to light through her artistic practice as well as her public engagement activity. Having spent over four decades exploring monumental and geological phenomena in a wide range of works from painting to photography to video, in 2006 she decidedly began devoting herself exclusively to the exploration of environmental issues. Her artworks integrate experiences of on-location explorations, interactions with scientists in their labs and research data all resolved into captivating climate-conscious works that encourage critical thinking about the role humans are having on the environment.

MichaelAngelo Rodriguez (Washington, DC), High Ground Por Si Tsunami, Archival pigment print (edition 1 of 5), 2020. Framed Artwork NFS. Editioned prints available: $100 each.

“Every year Hurricane Season is a time when the Caribbean has to brace by preparing for the worst. Climate Change has only made Hurricane Season more severe. The record storms Maria and Irma destructed much of Puerto Rico leaving the people of Puerto Rico with a heart wrenching experience. People on the island refer to talking about time as before Maria, during Maria, and after Maria. In 2022 you still see signs that the island has not ever fully recovered. Before the Pandemic and amidst the genesis of an earthquake phenomena on the southwestern region of the island I found this basketball court. This court shows signs of neglect which is common because of the effects of Maria. A metaphor that Puerto Rico is not well.”

-MichaelAngelo Rodriguez

Isabella Merlos (Arlington, VA), The greed and evil that destroyed the earth, Oil pastel, 2022. $365.

“This work depicts a young boy carrying his dinosaur toy while standing in front of a wildfire. Underneath him are two buried dead men dressed in suits, with gold bars holding them in place. The gold bars leading up to the dead men represent their money, power, and greed. The two dead men are wealthy and powerful leaders of fossil fuel corporations, for example Shell. The boy represents younger generations suffering and dying due to the greed of powerful corporation leaders that pollute the earth the most, the older generations. The dinosaur toy the boy is holding represents that the younger generations will have the same fate as the dinosaurs. That if pollution continues at this current rate, at some point the earth will be so destroyed it will be inhabitable.”

-Isabella Merlos

Rachel Cole (Brooklyn, NY) Questions for a Dinosaur, HDV, 2017. NFS.

“In this 9 minute video, I ask a dinosaur 109 questions about extinction. The video is an exploration of eco-anxiety, an exercise for myself to build specific language around my own psychological experience of (climate) change. I sought to answer the question, 'When I am fearful for the future, what am I fearful for, exactly.'”

- Rachel Cole

Pam Eichner (Silver Spring, MD), Cataclysmic Earthscape: Mudslide After Torrential Rain, Digital Drawing on Archival Paper, 2018. $500.

“My digitally drawn series of Cataclysmic Earthscapes present various tragic scenarios that will continue to arise as global warming progresses. Mudslide After Torrential Rain is a demonstration of the destructive force of atmospheric warming on natural habitats.”

- Pam Eichner

Ann Stoddard (Adelphi, MD), Carbon Footprint V- Assateague 2021, Pigment based inkjet photograph on archival paper, 2021. $550 framed. $330 unframed print.

“In July, 2021, an oily tide blackened miles of beach along Assateague Island National Park, Virginia. The oil that stained the beach had been expelled by oil tankers which fuel the cars that take vacationers to the beach. Visitors leave their footprints in the sand, to be washed away by the next tide. As a form of witness, I created a series of photographs to document this transient event, permanent reminders that our dependence on oil degrades the beauty of wild places.”

-Ann Stoddard

Chris Combs (Washington, D.C), Clear-Cut, Wood panel, custom LED display, wood pegs, computer, veneer, 2022. $1,495.

“Time-based: The veneer-covered display of this wall-mounted artwork shows dwindling numbers, suggesting a connection between consumer demand for flat-pack furniture and deforestation.”

- Chris Combs

Katie Kehoe (Richmond, VA), PIER, Saltmarsh, NV, Photographic documentation of a site-specific installation, 2016. NFS.

“Documents a site-specific installation that was part of my project, PIER/Platforms in the Southwest. Over the course of sixty days, I produced twenty-five desert installations and five urban installations. The first three weeks were driven to cultivate opportunities for working with others and interacting with the public while the latter five weeks, consisted of me working independently, travelling alone in and out of remote desert areas, camping, and installing the pier in arid sites, which in many cases, had at one time been lush and fruitful. I documented these site-specific installations with photography.”

- Katie Kehoe

Katie Ione Craney (Haines, AK) Hearing Distance, Photo transparency. 2021. $250.

“Sound travels roughly four times faster through water than air. Suspended in the air above my hand are used hearing aid batteries, drawing connections between sound and positive feedback loops, ice reflectivity and extraction, air and water. I’ve been thinking a lot about invisible disabilities created by our shifting climate, and the intimacy of being shaped by this change.

Image Description: two photographs speak to each other through visible touch and sound: a black and white photograph of small icebergs in water is next to a pale-colored left hand in a white background, the hand is about to catch or let go of hearing aid batteries suspended above the hand. Some batteries are blurred and blend with the skin of the hand.”

- Katie Ione Craney

JohnnyEveryman (Philadelphia, PA), FEMA Flood Map- Alexandria, VA, Acrylic ink on poly poplin fabric on LED lightbox, 2022. $4,800.

“The bright turquoise, and cyan areas are flood zones according to FEMA. Target Gallery is marked with a red icon in a zone that’s underwater. Which, according to the FEMA prediction, should be underwater once in every 100 years, but based on recent weather statistics, is actually more like once in every 8 years.

- JohnnyEveryman

Jeff Schofield (Pontiac, MI), apothecary jar series, Human hair in recycled glass jar, used wood cabinetry, 2022. $900.

“This collection of human hair is presented in a doll-house diorama setting like a display of family heirlooms. The installation arose from a forensic investigation involving people in my Detroit artist community. I've collected dozens of hair samples from artists, friends, collaborators, and their relatives, in order to exhibit the immense diversity of this population. The resulting expression is ephemeral and delicate, like life itself. A healthy environment nourishes, among other things, healthy hair. And sustainability aims to foster the health and well-being of all creatures on earth.

The domestic presentation of the house setting is both familiar and creepy. Indeed, some people refused to contribute their hair to my collection. Many showed reluctance, distrust, suspicion, repulsion and disgust. Sometimes I surreptitiously gathered hair in sink drains, shower mats, and other personal places. On its way to the oceans, hair becomes part of the flotsam of our daily lives.”

-Jeff Schofield

Maggie Golightly Haslam (Alexandria, VA) seas and turtle no. 2, Watercolor and NYC harbor water on paper, 2018. $2,400.

“This work was done on Governors Island in New York City, in August 2018, during a residency with Underwater New York and Works on Water. I made paintings in honor of the Lenape native people, who originally settled the NYC Harbor before Europeans arrived. This people had a profound appreciation for the land, reflected in the way they respected it and revered it as divinely created. I tried to relinquish control of the paint during the creation process in order to let natural consequences determine the outcome of the painting. This was my way of asking the water for forgiveness. This specific painting was a personal act of humility; it was a symbol of the recent birth of my first baby.”

- Maggie Golightly Haslam

Eric Rivera Barbeito (Richmond, VA), Desarrollo, Mixed Media, 2022, $643.14.

“Less focused on the rampant militarism that inspired the two previous pieces, Desarrollo mostly reacts to the countless instances of environmental destruction in the name of "Economic Growth and Development". It alludes to the myth of never-ending growth that Capitalism necessitates, and the increasing commodification of all aspects of life at the expense of all else.”

-Eric Rivera Barbeito

Syd Lewin (Richmond, VA), Porifera Utopia Now!, Single channel video with audio, 2021. NFS.

“Porifera Utopia Now! draws on my own experiences with non-linear time to develop an ethic of survival in the face of climate crisis. I invoke the notoriously slow-growing Antarctic glass sponge as a guide to queering and cripping the relentless march of capitalist productivity-oriented time--the cultural foundation which creates our current ecological emergency. Porifera Utopia Now! weaves together humor and personal experience as a queer neurodivergent person with geologic time scales, underwater landscapes, and stories of the sponge's resilience in an increasingly hostile world.”

- Syd Lewin

Ivy Kim (Crested Butte, CO), I am in the picture, artist’s shadow with autumn mountain reflection and wet decorative paper on river rock, from Seen and Felt wetland, Color photography, 2021, $350.

“This image is from a year-long ritual series of visiting a high-altitude wetland. During these visits, art was made with the animate wetland community. The artist explored a relationship with the community of nature to draw closer to everything beautiful and impermanent in the natural world. The whole project series examined healing trauma to heal the disconnected mindset that causes humans to harm the whole earth community via choices that negatively impact the shared environment.”

- Ivy Kim

Regina Quinn (Gilboa, NY), Eden Burning, Encaustics, India inks, and oils with beeswax over monoprint mounted on panel, 2022. $2,400.

“Mourning the losses as the Pacific Northwest burned in summer 2021.”

-Regina Quinn

Meredith Starr (Plainview, NY), I’ve Always Wanted Blonde Hair, C-print, 2022. $500.

The artworks that comprise Balancing Act are installations of found objects at the beach. The site-specific works incorporate collected plastic debris, raising awareness about plastics in the waterways and their impact on the ocean, beaches, and future generations. What began as weekly collaborations with the artist’s family on socially distanced excursions during quarantine, became an earnest attempt to contemplate and reflect the tipping point our planet has reached. The photographs of these installations invite the viewer to contemplate- are we so intertwined with plastic production that it has become integrated into our natural world or can we push the balance back to a more organic state with less waste?”

-Meredith Starr

Sarah Nance (Dallas, TX), marseille tidal gauge aria, Video/sounds, 2019-21. NFS.

“marseille tidal gauge aria is a vocal shroud composed from tide level data collected over the past 130 years from a tidal gauge in the bay of Marseille, France. I converted each yearly average tide level into an individual note within my vocal range and set the resulting atonal composition to a poem from Rasu-Yong Tugen’s book, Songs from the Black Moon. I perform the piece operatically, drawing on the genre’s propensity for magnified human emotion; the rising sea levels in the bay can be heard in the increasingly higher pitches of the aria. A performance of this piece was filmed at the fossilized Capitan Reef in Texas’s Permian Basin, locating the work inside another ancient sea.”

-Sarah Nance

Susan Hoffman-Fishman (West Hartford, CT), The Earth is Breaking Beautifully #5, Acrylic, oil pigment stick and mixed media on paper, 2021, $1,200.

“This painting is part of a larger series on sinkholes that are appearing in great numbers all along the coast of the Dead Sea in Jordan and Israel. The sinkholes, some 6000 to date, are the direct result of both climate change and extraction activities, which have caused the Dead Sea to shrink dramatically and the earth around the sea to collapse. Highly destructive, the sink holes are filled with the remains of water tinted with colored minerals, which makes them astonishingly beautiful to behold.”

- Susan Hoffman Fishman

Caroline Hatfield (Starkville, MS), Under a White Sky/The Nature of the Future, Digital photography collage, 2022. $800.

“Under a White Sky and The Nature of the Future is a pair of two photo-collages. Spanning geographies, the images are sourced from areas of nature tourism such as parks, preserves, and attractions. Each work combines skies, water, light, and geological forms into abstract representations of estranged landscapes. With its title derived from Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental book that describes human intervention in nature, I am questioning our collective perception and understanding of nature as commodity.”

- Caroline Hatfield

David Mann (Leesburg, VA), Noah, Intaglio Etching hand pulled print, 2020. $200.

“The 1st human provoked environmental disaster that nearly wiped people and their animals from the earth. We might not need as big a boat this time because we have since killed off so many species.”

- David Mann

ABOUT THE TARGET GALLERY

Target Gallery is the contemporary exhibition space of Torpedo Factory Art Center, managed by the City of Alexandria's Office of the Arts, a division of the Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities.

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