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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Ecology & Art at Metro State Gallery
Thursday 27 January @ 14:39:51 |
 by Valerie Valentine
The task of the artist is to interpret the world around us. Artists Alis Olsen, Julie Baugnet and Christine Baeumler shine their artistic spotlight on the natural world—what’s left of it, anyway. The work in Cross Pollinization: Ecology and Art at Metro State Gallery translates plants and animals with wood, paints and brush. The artists also take the viewer to task, encouraging us to consider how things came to be this way, and to ask: what can we do to protect what’s left?
Alis Olsen has selected intriguing pieces of wood around which she builds her
concepts. One called “Thoreau's Log” invokes the transcendental scribe
of trees by excerpting his writings on a split trunk, with a cunning pencil carved
from an attached curved branch.
 The
musings appear to have been burned into the wood, indelibly preserving the words
of a great naturalist. Similarly, she builds a poem from peeled branches inside
a box, the branches embellished with poetic language. The ties of this sculptor
to written word give layered meaning to her message.
The most striking piece by Olsen is a whimsical one featuring a tree root suspended
in a framebox. The root’s delicate form wriggles against a vibrant background.
Thoughtfully titled “The Invention of Walking,” Olsen asks the viewer
to imagine a time on earth without humans, when roots were spreading and sprawling
underground, untended and evolving.
Paintings by Christine Baeumler acknowledge diminishing diversity of animals and
the places they inhabit. Birds and bats, and a strange creature that looks like
a lemur all petition for attention. A colorful, faux world verges on the edges
of the creatures’ comfortable places, just as cities and urban sprawl devours
what once was wilderness. In “Braces Emerald Hummingbird (Extinct 1877),”
Baeumler commemorates a bird we will only know from illustrations, gone for eternity.
The use of leaves under her paint adds a subtle, evocative texture.
The extra-large “Forest Immensity” by Julie Baugnet portrays the vastness
of one tree limb in ten wooden panels linked together. Tiny bees hovering above
the outreaching limb lend perspective. Her bird paintings also feature species
extinct and endangered in our area.
Olsen’s artist statement considers the human relationship with the natural
world, and the spectrum of feelings associated with it—from reverential
awe to the desire to dominate. Her suggested dichotomy honestly represents our
species’ inherent contradictions. In this show, the artists have expressed
both awe and domination—their artifacts pay homage to the creatures and
growing things of the planet, while refining them into fine art, palatable to
the most civilized mind.
Cross Pollinization: Ecology and Art runs through Feb. 18 at Metro State
Gallery, 700 E. 7th St., St. Paul. 651-793-1631. Gallery hours are Mon. - Thu.
11 a.m. - 7 p.m. & Fri. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Closed Mondays.
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