Jeff Chapman-Crane, American, born 1953
The Agony of Gaia, 2004
Jeff Chapman-Crane is an Appalachia artist whose work illustrates the region’s culture and people. This sculpture depicts the destruction inflicted by MTM/VF on the earth as personified by Gaia, the earth-mother. Gaia curls up in pain as the mountains covering her body are destroyed, exposing her fragile skin. Her frame is indelibly altered from deforestation, explosives, leveling, and coalmining. Her upper body is the only remaining area with vegetation and life and even that is being forebodingly encroached upon by the mining activities. By anthropomorphizing the often invisible plight of MTM/VF, Chapman-Crane reminds of us of the universal harms shared by humans, animals, and nature alike. This depiction taps into the selfish, anthropocentric human mindset that often overlooks environmental injustice until it is unavoidably and obtrusively threatening humans. Exposing Gaia and revealing the normally neglected, forgotten sacrifice zone calls us to protect humans, which now extends to the earth herself. Label by Tori Erisman
Chapman-Crane’s multimedia sculpture presents an allegory for mountain-top removal, rendering the Ancient Greek mythological figure Gaia, the ultimate personification of the Earth, as a woman in the fetal position in apparent pain. Along her curves are the mountains that have been stripped for the purposes of profit, this metaphor paralleled by her own nakedness. In line with ecofeminist theory, the artist points the blame of Gaia’s pain to a capitalistic, patriarchal mindset (manifested by the construction vehicles). Label by Courtney Hand