Women and Nature Curation by Ashley Hollis Curation

Women and Nature Curation by: Ashley Hollis

Curation Statement Each piece in this online exhibit are done by women and are about nature. Nature is a way of understanding life. These women unlock the true depths of nature in these pieces by unearthing growth, decay, and its power. Women have always been attracted to Nature’s diversity and peculiarities. These pieces are relevant to me because they are done by female artists and because the subject matter is nature. I as an artist and a plant enthusiast thought that the connection between women and nature was one that was dynamic and interesting.

Maria Sibylla Merian She was a German born naturalist who raised and studied her own insects. She was a scientific illustrator. She contributed information to the field of entomology. Plate showing the stages of the Cocytius antaeus from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium

Beatrix Potter Was most known for her book, Peter Rabbit, was also drawn to the delicate form of insects. She tried to portray nature as accurately as possible. Beatrix Potter, ‘Studies of nine beetles

Marianne North She was an energetic, experienced and enthusiastic traveler who visited many continents and many countries in pursuit of interesting plants to paint. Musk Tree

Rachel Sussman Journeyed around the world to photograph the planet’s oldest living organisms. These pictures quiet the soul: when you look at them you wonder how these organisms managed to live so long and if there’s anything in them that might help us stave off the inevitable, she brings you to the place where science, beauty, and eternity meet. Spruce Gran Picea 9, 550 years old.

Maggie Foskett She sees the natural world not in the context of being conventionally “beautiful, ” but as an “arena of survival” in which mortality and the relationship of pattern echo one another. Rain Forest, 1996. Cliché verre

Ana Mendieta This piece is an attempt to reconnect with her motherland, Cuba, from which she was separated as a child. She immersed herself deep within the ancestral earth, therefore becoming one with nature. Imagen de Yagul

Ysabel Lemay “Nature is omnipresent in my work. I strive not only to honor its beauty, grace, and power, but also to go further, to explore and learn from nature’s consciousness, its infinite procession of interrelationships. ” “Reflection” (2014)