honeyjones
Meditations on Climate Crisis:
Inspiring Change
a group exhibition curated by Adriana G. Prat
featuring:
Cedric Harper
Maria Celeste Linardi
CJ Lori
Michelle Lougee
Shelby Meyerhoff
Carol Moses
Jeffrey Nowlin
Adriana G. Prat
Steven Rudin
Rebecca McGee Tuck
Assistant to the curator:
Shelby Meyerhoff
November 4 - 28, 2021
a message from curator
Adriana G. Prat:
Massive production and consumption of “stuff,” and the associated exploitation of natural resources, alters our unique planet. The consequences include climate change, environmental degradation, and the extinction of flora and fauna species. We increasingly witness the menace of this crisis in our own country and communities in the form of wildfires, flooding, and tougher weather conditions.
The climate crisis is a collective problem that requires collective solutions. At the same time, as individuals, it is all too easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless because there is no actual “owner” of the problem, and the crisis seems too massive to deal with. As catalysts for change, artists and their art can remind us that personal awareness and responsibility are essential to create community to build joint power: the ripple effect!
In this exhibit, “Meditations on Climate Crisis: Inspiring Change”, the curator Adriana G. Prat selected 2D and 3D artworks from ten artists, all residents of the Northeastern USA region*. These artists are diverse in backgrounds and art practices, but they share a personal and artistic commitment to the topic of the climate crisis. Their art processes and visions vary from using repurposed materials and decreasing waste, promoting personal and collective sustainability practices, or celebrating the beauty of all inhabitants of our ecosystem, including species that are at risk of extinction.
The exhibit viewer is invited to explore the complex feelings that this crisis can bring up for each of us. The goal is to inspire a sense of wonder and possibility in the natural world, and to consider ways to reclaim power to produce change that will stop and hopefully reverse the course of the climate crisis. Each of us can deliver change, big or small, and contribute to the ripple effect needed to build a solution to this global crisis.
A message from gallery owner, Julie Ayaz, and a bit more about Meditations On Climate Crisis: Inspiring Change, the exhibition and the artists
Curator and artist Adriana G. Prat has been inspired in the last several years to unite a community of like-minded artists with a proactive mission. Originally exhibited at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center in 2020, this group has grown in numbers and diversity of participating artists and hopefully will continue in this trajectory. Ms. Prat envisions this as a recurring event with an ever-changing and expanding community of artists and engaged viewers. At its heart will be the sincere call to action regarding our shared climate crisis. Where do we stand now and how can we deliberately be a part of daily change in our individual and community lives? How committed are we? The ten participating artists are committed to addressing this dilemma of self-awareness through their work and alignment in projects.
As gallery owner, I feel very fortunate to have come to know this project and Adriana herself. Now in our second year, my own goals for the gallery as a community voice have been to simply go deeper, more focused, into the realms where honeyjones was first conceived. One description of the gallery I have given is that it is a gallery with a mindful mission. I like this simple statement. The first themes I represented were ones of self-discovery and a searching for good in the world, but even more than this I have aimed to invoke protective awe of our natural world, our mystical connection to nature, our searching for identity, how we communicate and how we love one another. This covers a lot of territory. I felt the need to go further into these realms in order to claim some deeper truths and offer a greater investment in specific causes. Our guest-curated (Nancy DuVergne Smith) theme of water in September and Joanne Simon's October show inspired by endangered bird species of Amazonia mark the beginning of this next phase of the gallery's growth. And in seeking to represent a profound commitment to the preservation of our natural environment and humans as inhabitants, especially in this month traditionally associated with such controversial, brutal, and sad histories, I sent out many messages in my search but it was simply a fateful meeting that decided this current happening. I am so gratefuI for this experience and so proud of these artists!!
-Julie
honeyjones
The artists in order as their work appears in the gallery with a description of work displayed and website information follows.
Steven Rudin is a New York City based artist, teacher, and former psychiatrist. Steven's vibrant collage and painting on newsprint, Accidental Dada #23, is in the honeyjones gallery window.
Michelle Lougee creates sculptural, often pendant, forms by crocheting and molding remnants of plastics to represent life and habitats most directly affected by this particular form of waste. Her giant Tether and twelve Jellyfish are part of this exhibition.
Shelby Meyerhoff is a multidisciplinary artist who draws much inspiration from the Middlesex Fells habitats which are close to her own home. Shelby is showing three photographs from her Zoomorphic Series, Lion, Coyote, and Monarch Butterfly.
https://www.shelbymeyerhoff.com/
Jeffrey Nowlin is an Allston-based artist and teacher with an expansive and diverse background in fiber arts. Three
of Jeffrey's lovely woven works, nuanced symbols of the seasons created with recycled clothing and materials, are part of the Meditations exhibition; Winter, Spring, and Late Summer Malaise.
https://www.jeffreynowlinsculpture.com/
Maria Celeste Linardi "In my work, I try to represent the challenge that nature faces as a parallel to humankind. In each painting, you will discover a story, a battle of feelings or simply a visual rendering of the pass of time..."
Two of Maria Celeste's paintings are part of the exhibition, Message from Nature and Still Standing.
http://mariacelestefineart.com/index.html
Cedric Harper is a Boston-based artist whose "creative work comes from manipulation of language symbols and dreams whether that transforms itself into tables, sculpture, totems, or panels.." Three of Cedric's intricately, delicately painted totems are part of this show.
https://edward-film.squarespace.com/about
Rebecca McGee Tuck is "a mixed-media sculptor and and a collector of lost objects. Her work is inspired by the bits and fragments of sea and land debris that she gathers. Rebecca's playful and very alive Regarding Coral sculpture
is at honeyjones for this special showing.
https://www.rebeccamcgeetuck.com/
C.J. Lori is a Brookline, MA - based artist whose oil paintings have often been described as being in the Neo-surrealism and magic realism veins. "Ms. Lori's paintings explore the complex relationship between humanity and the environment." Two of these paintings, Leaving the Gorse and Tally-Ho are part of this exhibition.
Adriana G. Prat is "an academically-trained scientist with a PhD in Biophysics. After moving to the USA from Argentina, a more introspective life revealed her call to become a visual artist . She acquired essential art skills in adult education centers while experimenting on her own with different media and techniques."
Adriana's artwork is unusually vibrant and often evokes a sense of geographical place through mapping and an emotional response or yearning to a call.
Carol Moses Although Ms. Moses has a history of working in non-representational art, her work shown in this exhibition is photographic and are very real representations of local flora and fauna, in abundance. Lichen, and Wetlands (turtles and ducks) are Carol's contribution to this theme.