Creek Fire

Jennifer Rochlin, American, born 1968

Creek Fire, 2017

Jennifer Rochlin’s clay sculpture is a product of her emotions surrounding the growth in fires around her California residence, with this piece specifically recalling the Creek Fire in the winter of 2017. On the clay, she depicts horses, birds, mountain lions, and other animals, inspired by the 29 ranch horses that were killed in the flames. Rochlin explains that the abstract etches on the outside of the clay are a visual representation, and an actual product, of her anxiety during the fire and the fear and sadness that fills her as she hears fire stories like this. To round out the symbolic nature of the piece she writes, “It’s sad and poetic somehow that you fire the clay to solidify the marks.” She uses art in this instance to represent the Creek Fire in an expressionistic way, as well to represent her own emotions and difficulty coping with these fires in California. Label by Maeve Marsh

The Second Grace: Purity

Jjenna Hupp Andrews, American

The Second Grace: Purity, 2016

This sculpture reminds individuals that justice for the City of Flint has not yet been served. The Justice Scales juxtaposed to the water bottle containing contaminated water draws a direct connection between the Flint Water Crisis and the lack of response from public officials. The addition of Flint water within the human figure itself seems to suggest the ways in which contaminated water affects all parts of the body, while also suggesting the permeability of the skin. The use of plastic bottles not only alludes to the residents’ reliance on bottled water as their sole source of clean, safe drinking water but also of the sheer abundance of water bottle waste and consumption that accompanies this crisis. Label by Grace Moser

The Agony of Gaia

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

Lips Oil Cans Exhibition 'Lipstick and Agapanthus’

Sokari Douglas Camp, British-Nigerian, born 1958

Lips Oil Cans Exhibition ‘Lipstick and Agapanthus’, 2018

Sokari Douglas Camp is a British-Nigerian artist known for her work commenting on human rights issues, and the collection this piece is from points towards environmental injustices. In the work, she depicts two “distinctly African” figures, made entirely out of metal oil cans, frolicking together in a field of metal flowers with oil cans on their heads. The piece is playful, yet the grime and grease left on the cans hints to the message she is making about mankind’s dependence on oil and its effect on our relationship with the environment. It is as if the oil industry is overcoming mankind and is inherently connected to how we interact and affect our environment—as the bright white flowers are left covered in the grease while the figures play on top of them. Label by Maeve Marsh