Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Mary Iverson’s Paintings Document Our Tumultuous Relationship with Nature

Seattle-based artist Mary Iverson creates oil paintings that both celebrate nature and comment on our problematic choices surrounding it. Slashes and geometric shapes obscure parts of the pristine backdrops depicted by the artist, using an X-acto knife to cut through her initial creations. Here, sites like the California coast and Mount Rainier are overcome by shipping containers and similar, intrusive objects. Iverson was last featured on HiFructose.com here.

Seattle-based artist Mary Iverson creates oil paintings that both celebrate nature and comment on our problematic choices surrounding it. Slashes and geometric shapes obscure parts of the pristine backdrops depicted by the artist, using an X-acto knife to cut through her initial creations. Here, sites like the California coast and Mount Rainier are overcome by shipping containers and similar, intrusive objects. Iverson was last featured on HiFructose.com here. Iverson was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 21.

The artist maintains that her latest body of work, “Eden,” comments on the moment between creation and destruction. “By destruction, I mean climate change and the resulting loss of our earthly paradise,” Iverson says, in a statement. “We know what to avoid doing, but we are doing it anyway. To avoid irreversible climate change, we need to invest in renewable energy instead of fossil fuel extraction infrastructure. But we just elected a president that has promised to bolster the oil industry.”

In addition to climate change, she’s also commenting on the role that commerce plays in this process. “Eden currently occupies Chandran Gallery in San Francisco, running through Feb. 5. The artist’s mural projects, located throughout the U.S. Northwest, makes use of the artist’s knack for geometric forms.


Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Karine Rougier’s mystical "Wild waves in our hands" touches both on our tribal nature and explores femininity. The show is staged at Catinca Tabacaru Gallery in New York City throughout the month. On the show, the gallery says this: “Women are Rougier’s muses; poetry her nourishment: an ode to Ingeborg Bachmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, les Métamorphoses d’Ovide.”
Yellena James explores a wildly flourishing imaginary ecosystem in her solo show "Radiance," opening at LeQuiVive Gallery in Oakland on January 10. While paintings of flowers are traditionally on the tame side, James's work is far-removed from your average still life. Her flat, stylized flora explodes from every corner of each piece. The brightly colored, biomorphic shapes are ambiguous and suggestive, sometimes even overwhelmingly energetic. James draws and paints them in combinations of acrylic, marker, and ink, inviting a playful dance of various textures. "Radiance" will include a site-specific mural at the gallery, as well.
Japanese artist Toru Kamei creates sensual, dreamlike paintings that reference nature and mythology. While some of his pieces delve into the enchanted worlds of serpentine gods and mermen, other works offer a surrealist take on vanitas painting. Like the Northern Renaissance still lifes, Kamei's work meditates on the fragility of life and the imminence of mortality. But his work takes on a bizarre dimension when one notices the eyeballs popping out of the flowers he paints, making them look haunted and eerily alive.
Curated by artist Gromyko Semper, "Endangered Visions" is a group show with a wide breadth of artists but a short longevity. Set to premiere at ManilART, the Philippines' largest annual art fair, October 15 through 19, the show features dozens of Filipino and international artists who work with surreal imagery, albeit in vastly different ways. "'Endangered Visions' seeks to counterbalance an art world driven by a rapacious market with something more contemplative, subtle and challenging," said Semper in an email to Hi-Fructose. In addition to organizing the show, he will be one of the exhibiting artists alongside Jana Brike, Teiji Hayama, Kirsten Stingle and many others. Take a look at our preview below.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List