Calamity

Description

The Shooting Gallery is pleased to present Calamity, a solo exhibition by Mary Iverson. This new collection explores appropriation through the incorporation of images cut from environmental magazines into the artist’s own paintings, mirroring the nation’s appropriation of “natural resources for private gain.” The exhibit will include five large-scale oil paintings and six to ten smaller acrylic on panel works. The opening reception for Calamity will be held at the Shooting Gallery on Saturday, February 11, 2012 from 7-11pm and will be on display, free and open to the public, through March 3, 2012.

From the Artist:

“My ongoing fascination with the shipping industry began with plein air studies of container terminals at the Port of Seattle, and has continued to evolve through several diverse bodies of work. My current paintings combine my interest in global trade and my concerns for environmental issues. They inspire an environmental dialogue by superimposing stacks of shipping containers onto images of pristine landscapes. This juxtaposition presents a post-apocalyptic vision, suggesting a potential outcome and deleterious effects of our global economy.

The background images in my oil paintings are inspired by travels to state and national parks. They are painted in the style of the Hudson River School, with dramatic vistas and surreal lighting. Into these pristine environments, all of which feature national parks, state parks or nature preserves, I scratch measurement lines, then insert a plethora of shipping containers scattered about the landscape. In “Mount Rainier with Containers,” I paint the majestic beauty of Mount Rainier National Park in the dramatic light of the luminist painters, then defile it with perspective lines and shipping containers.

The background images in my collages are cut directly from environmental magazines. These works address the issue of appropriation. My process of “stealing” images from magazines parallels the process of appropriating natural resources for private gain. In the words of naturalist John Muir in his message to the 1908 Governors Conference on Conservation, “Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded.”

Given the choice, we certainly would not push our industrial activities into these frontiers in the manner presented in my paintings. Unfortunately, although our country has protected our parklands for over a century, they are facing a new threat. There is actually a bill being pushed in congress, HR 1581, that would, in the name of national security, open up millions of acres of protected wilderness to destructive development. I hope the bill does not succeed.”

Mary Iverson has long possessed a fascination for the port of Seattle, beginning with plein air studies of its cranes and gradually evolving to her current paintings which focus more on shipping containers. Stylistically, she reduces the container terminal to a complex network of overlapping planes and construction lines in dramatic perspective. Conceptually, her work deals with issues of accumulation, industry, time and ambiguity. Iverson received an MFA in painting from the University of Washington and a BFA in Design from Cornish College of the Arts. Via Davidson Galleries

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