Environmental Art
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
- Native American Proverb
"Betrayal" by Spanish artist Mario S. Nevado
What is Eco Art?
- A term used for forms of art dealing with ecological issues.
Goal:
- To help improve our relationship with the natural world.
- To create an understanding of nature and its processes, & allowing us to understand current environmental issues.
- Allowing us to be concerned with environmental forces & materials we can use to create artworks.
- To have us rethink our relationship with nature and consider some solutions on how we can better co-exist with it.
- To restore ecosystems in artistic and aesthetic ways.
Brief History
- Began in the 1960s.
- Several artists began sculpting with nature materials. Examples: snow volcanoes, lighting, earth & deep sea sites.
- Most of these works are temporary & exist now only on photographs.
- Often these works are filled with messages: environmental, or ontological (concerned with nature of being).
Types of Eco Art
1) Landscape Manipulation (using nature to create art)
2) Important Message (Environmental, social, or political)
3) Using recycled materials
2) Important Message (Environmental, social, or political)
3) Using recycled materials
Examples of Eco Artists
"Land Manipulation"
Robert Smithson
- An American artist famous for his use of photography in relation to sculpture and land art.
- He manipulated the natural environment by using rocks and stones to form huge spirals.
""Spiral Jetty" by Robert Smithson
Andy Goldsworthy
- A British Artist who created outdoor sculptures using natural materials like: pedals, leaves, snow, ice, rocks and twigs.
“Stone River” by Andy Goldsworthy
Andres Amador
- Artist Andres Amador creates unconventional art with his incredible sand paintings.
- Using the beach as his enormous canvas and rakes as his brushes, Amador creates massive, eye-catching murals featuring geometric and floral patterns.
- The sand artist uses his whole body to navigate his tools across the grains, transforming his chosen coastline into one of his giant Earthscape paintings.
Examples of Eco Artists
"Important Messages"
Nele Azevedo
- She carved thousands of small figures which she placed on important monuments to have her audience watch them melt.
- Her sculptures question the role of monuments in cities.
- Mainly, her art address the urgent matter of climate change & how it threatens our existence.
Nele Azevedo's 1,000 ice figures on the steps of Berlin’s
Gendarmenmarkt Square
Gendarmenmarkt Square
Christo & Jeanne-Claude
- A Bulgarian American and his American Wife.
- The couple was interested in provoking their audience to think about the immediate world.
- In 1972-1976 created “Running Fence”, consist of cloth attached to street poles. A veiled French of 24.5 miles crossing the private property of 59 ranchers to reach the Pacific Ocean.›-Inspired after the Continental Divide.
- Aimed to create a new way of seeing familiar landscape
Chisto & Jeanne-Claude's Running Fence (1976)
Jeff Hong
- A New York animation artist.
- He imagined some of Disney's popular characters facing the grim conditions associated with the reality of climate change and pollution.
- He states that if "if we do not safeguard out planet, these fairytales most certainly won't have a happy ending ".
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Examples of Eco Artists
"Recycled Materials"
Bernard Pras
- A French artist who used anamorphosis (sticking objects on a canvas to give more volume).
- He turned trash into treasure.
“The Great Wave" by Bernard Pras
Sayaka Ganz
- Inspired by the Japanese belief that “all objects have spirits” and those thrown away weep in the trash bins at night.
- She creates animals, to bring live again to these discarded objects.
Bordalo:
- A Portuguese artist who hopes to draw attention to our culture’s uncontrollable production of waste with his creation of animalistic trash sculptures.
- A street artist who uses trash found on the city streets and brings them to life with large mural sculptures.
Presentation
"Environmental Art"
New Media Eco Art
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A Guide to Eco Artists
By Sinthia Cousineau
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