Dowd Exhibition Explores ‘Natural States’

10/20/2015 

“Natural States,” a contemporary art exhibition exploring the various types of intertwined relationships between humans and nature, will be displayed at SUNY Cortland’s Dowd Gallery from Monday, Oct. 26, to Friday, Dec. 11.

The group showing of paintings, photographs, sculpture, mixed media work and digital animation by 15 artists will open with a reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29.

The exhibition is co-curated by Nati Hyojin Kim and Santiago Garcia of Mixed Greens gallery in New York City, who will present a curator’s talk at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

Mark Mulroney, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based artist who is creating a site-specific mural for the exhibition, will give an artist’s talk at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19.

All gallery events are free and open to the public. The Dowd Gallery is located in the Dowd Fine Arts Center on the corner of Graham Avenue and Prospect Terrace. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment.

Mixed Greens, located in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, specializes in conceptually driven and figurative work by emerging and mid-career American artists.

In addition to Mulroney, the Mixed Greens gallery-affiliated artists whose work will be included in the show are Kim Beck, Sonya Blesofsky, Rob Carter, Howard Fonda, Kimberley Hart, Scott Hazard, Keith Lemley, Joan Linder, Naomi Reis, Rudy Shepherd, Joseph Smolinski, Lee Stoetzel, Mary Temple and Leah Tinari.

“Natural States” aims to explore the definition of “natural state,” according to Dowd Gallery Director Erika Fowler-Decatur.

	Rob Carter's 2009 digital c-print, “Union Territory,” is shown. Above left is Joseph Smolinski's 2015 3D-printed PLA and resin, “Ghost Bee 1.”

For example, Reis’ stylized botanical garden in “Borrowed Landscape IV (Tropics of Africa, Asia and the Amazon via Brooklyn),” highlights the show’s overarching premise that even the most natural-seeming environments may have been manipulated.

Smolinski’s work addresses the alarming ramifications of human activity on nature with his examination of bee colony collapse disorder in “Ghost Bee,” a 3-D printed plastic and resin sculpture, and “Colony Collapse,” a digital animation.               

The photographic architecture in Carter’s “Union Territory” is culturally iconic yet alien to the landscape and plant life around and in it, pointing to how nature over time cannot be restrained in relation to urban development.

Mulroney’s exhibition mural focuses on the clichéd idea of tropical paradise and the human urge to fantasize about it as a means of escapism.

“We’ve arranged for some of our students to assist him with the painting of the mural over the College’s fall break,” Fowler-Decatur said. “I’m excited for them to have the opportunity to work with a practicing visual artist.”

Contact Fowler-Decatur at 607-753-4216 for more information or regarding group tours.