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Artists
Charles Fine
Inspired by the natural curiosities, archaeological relics and found objects he has gathered over the past thirty years as he explored the Western United States, Mexico, and Central America, the work of Los Angeles artist Charles Fine is reflected in his multi-layered paintings, cast bronze sculptures and photographs.
In his wonderful Table of Contents series, tables are covered with dense and precise arrangements of his decades-in-the-making collection of ceremonial objects, seedpods and artifacts. An artist's artist, well respected in both the artist and collecting community, he has an exhibition shortly in Los Angeles {date to be announced}.
The finishing touches are being made to a book on the last 30 years of the work of Charles Fine, which I look forward to seeing.
David Nash
One of the things British sculptor David Nash is known for is shaping living trees. His "Ash Dome," a ring of trees he planted in 1977, is made up of 22 ash saplings, which he pruned and shaped over decades to slowly bring the branches together to form a swirling cupola. "Ash Dome" emphasized a long-term, hands-on relationship to environmental stewardship. "Part of the point was that nature actually gets on very well when a human being is caring for it and lives with it," Nash says. The location of "Ash Dome" remains a secret, and whenever it's filmed, crews are taken to it by a circuitous route in order to guard its whereabouts.
Jim Denevan
California artist Jim Denevan has yet to sell a single piece of artwork, instead he uses the California coastline as his canvas, creating sweeping ephemeral works on the sand. The artist completes his stunning works, such as a giant spiral by the early afternoon, only to watch it be washed away by evening. The following short video shows the artist at work:
http://jimdenevan.com/
Jim Denevan is also the founder and organizer of Outstanding in the Field, a very cool worldwide moveable feast who's mission is to re-connect people to the land, and to where their food is grown, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.
http://outstandinginthefield.com/
In March 2010, he created the world's largest artwork based on the Fibonacci sequence, on the largest lake in the world, Lake Baikal.
Jim Denevan: Lake Baikal
Sheila Hicks
Sheila Hicks is a remarkable American fiber artist, who has been showing her work since 1958, making all manner of woven pieces, large and small, inspired by ancient Peruvian traditional textiles arts, and blending them with those of Persia and India. The organic earthy feel of her work has been compared to the radiance of a starry sky, the complex structures of dream palaces and the thickness of fleece. Her hangings are colorful, magical, warm, inventive, and provide a lovely break from the utilitarian design of the buildings where they hang.
Her book Sheila Hicks: 50 Years (Addison Gallery of American Art)
Christiane Lohr
Christiane Lohr's pure and minimal sculptures are so beautiful. I saw one of her pieces at a show in NYC and I was mesmerized by the lightness of her Giant Seed Cloud. Lohr's work shows how meticulously she studies the geometric and organic structures she finds in the natural world, collecting her materials on her walks in the countryside, and depending on the season could be thistles or seeds, flowers stalks or burrs. Her work is ultra ecological and eco-sustainable since she only uses natural, and fully biodegradablle materials. Featured here are images for Giant Seed Cloud, showing innumberable thistle seeds suspended inside a large invisible hair net, and Seed Bag, a smaller piece.
Theo Jansen
Artist Theo Jansen, Dutch creator of "Kinetic Sculptures", uses nature for inspiration. He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals, the wind-walking strand beasts, extraordinary lifelike moving sculptures that are solely powered by the wind, with large gossamer like wings which propel these beasts across the beach. It's a sight to behold!
See more at StandBeest.com
Phoebe Washburn
New York artist Phoebe Washburn creates very cool looking environmental-scale sculptures. She uses discarded materials such as scraps of wood, newspaper, cardboard and other detritus and turns them into visual treasures of undulating walls and floors. I find her work invigorating and visually stimulating and the mundane materials she uses, the repurposing of them to create something else, thrills me. I think she may be a wizard.
She has a show on in NYC at the Zach Feuer Gallery till August 12th.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
I find the French Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's work inspiring. He has wandered the globe documenting the beauty of our planet as well as areas in urgent need of our help. His book "Earth from Above
Artists: Patrick Dougherty
Patrick Dougherty
Patrick Dougherty just astonishes me! Somehow he can bend, weave, and tangle twigs and branches to create works of art inseparable from nature and the landscape around it. He makes shapes and forms evoking some of my favorite nature made treasures like nests and cocoons and because he is using organic matter to construct these stick sculptures, they eventually disintegrate and fade back into the landscape, uniting with nature once again. His first book Stickwork, features thirty-eight of his fantastical at times gravity defying works.
Jamie Wyeth
Copyright © Jamie Wyeth
I love the work of Jamie Wyeth so much. I am moved by the deep reverence he has for nature and animals and by the respect and affection he shows them. In Gulls, Raven and a Vulture, he gives them the same care and intensity he devotes to portraits of people. The book also contains many wonderful paintings of crows, chickens and geese. This is a fabulous introduction for the whole family to the beloved American artist Jamie Wyeth and his cast of misfit animal friends.
