En-Vision: Artists Respond to the Environmental Crisis

En-Vision: Artists Respond to the Environmental Crisis, including works by Patrick Dougherty, Richard Malagorski, Dan McCormick, Kerry van Der Meer, Janet Culbertson, and Matt Larson, this diverse collection of 2-D and 3-D works explores the myriad ways artists have chosen to attend to the environmental issues that face our contemporary world.

The work on display presents a variety of artists' responses to the environmental issues gripping the world today, in media ranging from the more traditional oil paint of Culbertson and the panoramic photography of Larson to the documentation of Doughtertyís large-scale, temporary sculptures as they appeared on-site. Matt Larson creates suggestive and mysterious landscapes through the use of a Diana camera, which is often considered to be a toy camera. His photographs challenge the perception of scale and create iconic and dreamlike views of our environment.

Also among the works being shown, McCormick's watershed sculpture lies upon the first floor of the Herndon Gallery, a large, disconcerting construction of rope, coffee bags, and the invisible but vital organic matter that serves to give the sculpture its three-dimensional form and affords it its ultimate destination as a physical element of the restoration project at Glen Helen in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Constructed on-site in the Herndon Gallery, McCormickís piece was conceived in conjunction with the Glen Helen Nature Preserve, designed to help combat stream-bank erosion, and will find its permanent home along the banks of the Yellow Spring Creek.

Unsuspecting visitors may find themselves startled by the convincing and severe amphibian sculptures of Vander Meer, such as Evolved Golden Toad, which in rubber, steel and thread equips a sculpture of the extinct Golden Toad of Monte Verde, Costa Rica with purple thorns ñ an evolution devised by the artist to produce a tougher skin for the beautiful orange-gold toad who is now an element of the past. The exhibition opened November 18, 2004 and will be on display until February 11. Funding for this exhibition was provided in part by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council.

The Herndon Gallery is located on the first and second floors of South Hall on the Antioch College campus. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10:00 - 5:00 and by appointment. The exhibition is free and open to the public. For more information, a complete schedule of events and directions, please call (937) 767-1149.