Nan Smith - "Mercury"
This expansive piece is constructed so it takes up quite a bit of room on the floor of the gallery. What looks to be a sculpture or mannequin-like figure of a woman is seated on a wooden bench, washing her feet. Next to her are bars of soap. In front of her is a rectangular space with the image of a clear stretch of water placed on the floor. Within this space, huge figure eights of graphite colored, identical toy cars loop around with the symbol of Mercury painted on their hoods. Nondescript tuna cans are interspersed throughout this space, and are on the bench next to the girl as well. Looping around with the cars are long lines of models of fish of varying sizes. One of the fish is coated in what appears to be mercury. And finally, behind the seated figure of the girl, three banners hang showing amalgamated photos of swimming people, fish, etc. to form something of a cacophonous representation of the scene presented physically below.
This piece is obviously an environmental message, and is commenting on the cycle of pollution caused by humans into the water, and how it eventually comes back around to harm us in the end. Specifically, the pollution is mercury emissions from cars that drain to the oceans, where the fish are poisoned and contaminated. These tainted fish are caught, regardless, and packaged up to be sold as food for humans to consume. So in a way, as we ambivalently poison our oceans and fish, we're simultaneously poisoning ourselves. The idea of mercury emissions comes across from the Mercury symbol present on each of the cars, and the fish that happens to be covered in a metallic liquid representation very similar to it. The figure of the girl on the bench, washing herself, is representative of humanity cleansing the environment and themselves to hope for a better future.
The cyclical forms of the fish and cars are very effective in showing the endless loop of contamination that inevitably occurs each day, and the sheer scale of the piece highlights the importance of the issue. The looping figure eights of the cars and fish also give a sense of entrapment, kind of like a whirlpool. The fish can do nothing about their predicament, and there's no stopping people from using and constructing cars. Though the subject and message should give a very negative connotation, I like the positivity implied by the artist with the bathing girl, and that we have the ability to change everything.
Bethany Taylor - "Runoff Verdure"
A verdure tapestry (which is a traditional tapestry woven to typically depict landscape scenes) hangs in the center of the gallery wall, but remains incomplete. The image on the tapestry looks to be a forest or swampland area, but the final quarter of the piece remains as a basic guide for how it is supposed to be finished. The threads that have yet to be woven into this section are instead trailing off to the sides, and looping around themselves to form figures that hang adjacent to the tapestry. These figures include mostly animal and animal skeleton forms, the skeletons of humans interacting with objects such as boats, and objects that represent or allude to plant fertilizer and pollution.
Another piece commenting on the impact of humans on an environment, the tapestry represents the picturesque, ideal landscape that the location should be, but frays entirely at the ends and forms the figures of the suffering and dead animals, and the skeletons that represent them. The depiction of human skeletons shows that it even affects them after everything is said and done, and like Nan Smith's piece, our recklessness and ignorance comes back to haunt us later on. Specifically, this piece seems to be about fertilizer runoff from crops, and how it poisons the water and kills the fish and animals living in the area.
This is a very elegant work, and is a strange juxtaposition against its message. From a distance, it almost looks like the forms made from the individual strings are just very artistic representations of the animals and people that live in the location the tapestry depicts. But when you view everything up close, you see that they are actually decayed skeletons and suffering animals, and the blatant imagery of a fertilizer pump and farming equipment drives home the environmental message. The incomplete tapestry starts to look like a work of sabotage after you see this. Perhaps it has already been finished, but humans came along and tore it all apart, forming these unsettling figures.
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