Artists for the earth
Fine Arts
The artist’s experience of the natural world filtered through their imagination and expressed in their work allow a viewer the chance to focus attention, respond emotionally, find meaning in the work or sometimes in a more profound way, a deeper consciousness of existence itself.
PAINTING
The artist’s experience of the natural world filtered through their imagination and expressed in their work allow a viewer the chance to focus attention, respond emotionally, find meaning in the work or sometimes in a more profound way, a deeper consciousness of existence itself.
ZARIA FORMAN does large scale drawings with pastels by taking thousands of photographs of landscapes and relying on her memory. In 2016 she was invited to join NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge an airborne science mission that maps ice changes at both poles. Travelling to the Arctic and south to the equator she has captured the story of polar ice melting and the rising seas. She hopes to emotionally connect the viewer with the sublimity of these polar places and that they will be inspired to protect them. 
ISABELLA KIRKLAND uses old fashioned methods to paint the images of species that will stand as witness; to make iconic images that identify and bear witness to the fate of individual species lost during the Anthropocene era. Her work reminds us of what is lost, even as her paintings sparkle with the beauty of nature’s flora and fauna. 
ROBERT BATEMAN is one of Canada’s foremost artists, a painter of wildlife and a naturalist recognized by the Audubon Society as “one of the 20th century’s heroes of conservation”. He is a spokesman for many environmental preservation issues. 
ABEL RODRÍGUEZ is a self-taught artist from the jungle of Columbia. Forced to leave the forest because of the violence, he lives in Bogota and continues to paint the trees and vegetation from memory. Although he cannot read, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants and trees in the Igara Parana River region of the Amazon. He came to drawing in order to represent the life cycle of the forest plants and to preserve their use in healing for people and animals. He is considered one of most important artists of Columbia. He won first place at the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art. 
LUCHITA HURTADO is a Venezuelan painter who immigrated to the United States in the 1920’s. Her vision is that the human body is not separate from nature, but part of the world. She couples images of the human body with the sky and earth and mixing her engagement with environmentalism and feminism. 
JILL PELTO creates “Glaciogenic Art”, her passion to construct new ways to communicate science through art. She paints watercolors to raise awareness around climate change data. 
ALEXIS ROCKMAN makes art to support a campaign for conservation. He depicts darkly surreal, apocalyptic scenarios in which many species struggle to surmount toxic conditions and where primordial or feral creatures are pictured as the survivors. 
DIANE BURKO’S art focuses on monumental geological phenomena. From rain forests to glaciers and active volcanoes, her work addresses landscape, climate change and environmental activism. Her project, Politics of Snow, investigates historical comparisons through images culled from glacial geological data recorded throughout the world. Her research expeditions explore the impacts of climate change with emphasis on glacier melting and coral bleaching.
SCULPTURE
An artist may be considered an ‘environmental artist’ not because the artist focuses on an environmental issue, but because they are part of the movement that aims to explore relations between nature and the human world and raise awareness of mankind’s role within the web of all life.
JASON DeCAIRES TAYLOR’S sculptures are underwater artificial reefs installed at various locations around the world. Each sculpture provides a home for fish and crustaceans and encourages coral larvae to attach and thrive. 
ANDY GOLDSWORTHY is a Scottish artist known for his outdoor, site-specific installations involving an endless array of natural materials. His works emphasize the inherent beauty of nature. He crafts work in a landscape, and then documents these collaborations with nature through photography showing their inevitable changes. 
ISAAC CORDAL is a Spanish artist whose work involves sculpture and photography in the urban environment. His 15 centimeter high figurines are placed in absurd, dramatic or quotidian scenes sometimes submerged in water. In Waiting for Climate Change his suited figures stand atop wooden poles on the coast, the water rising around them checking their cell phones, seemingly prepared but doing nothing. 
ANGELA HASELTINE POZZI created Washed Ashore, an organization with the mission of educating awareness about plastic pollution. From plastic gathered on the beaches of Oregon, they construct larger-than-life sculptures of the animals affected by it. 
NILS UDO is a German artist and one of the main figures in the environmental art movement. He is known for creating “utopian” earth sculptures in nature. He has used the figure of a nest because it is a reminder of Mother Nature and the Earth as comfort. 
MARY O’BRIEN AND DANIEL MCCORMICK’S sculptures are made to rehabilitate the ecosystems where they are placed. Their sculptures buttress riverbanks and shelter wetlands from erosion. They influence the ecological balance of compromised environments. The installations are remedial and intend to give advantage to natural systems. 
MARGARITA CHECA is a foremost South American sculptor whose work is comprised mainly of wooden figures sculpted from olive trees and fallen wood from the Amazon where she works. Her statement for her “Web of Life” installation was: “The earth does not belong to men; it is men who belong to the earth. Everything is connected like the blood that binds us all. Men did not weave the web of life. It is only the thread of it. What he does to the web, he does to himself.” Her work expresses the need for men to reconcile with themselves, each other and with nature. 
LORENZO QUINN’S sculpture entitled Support is intended to make a statement on climate change. His sculpture is the first sculpture to be placed in the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The monumental sculpture depicts two enormous hands emerging from the Grand Canal to protect and support the historic Ca’Sagredo Hotel.
FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
The inquiry of the scientific method is not different from the artist – to use creativity is common to both. Scientists have said we need to change but there is a need for a language that people can understand. Charts and graphs leave people cold and sometimes the subject is far away and there is no connection to it. When the subject is captured in an image, it tells a story and gives others the opportunity to connect, to understand and to feel.
CLYDE BUTCHER is an award winning photographer dedicated to the environment. Although he is associated with the Florida Everglades, his works document the beauty of other monumental landscapes in national parks and in other countries. He has been part of six public broadcasting documentaries and is the author of numerous books. 
ANNE NOBLE is an acclaimed New Zealand photographer. Her series of exhibitions entitled Nature Study is about honeybees. She believes we have a need for images and stories to make meaning of human experience. She looks at bees not just to make photographs, but find ways to engender a psychic connection between humans and the ecosystem. 
Swiss photographer DAISY GILARDINI writes, “As environmental photographers it is our duty to capture the beauty of places and species at risk and raise awareness through the universal power of the images we capture. While science provides the data necessary to explain issues and suggest solutions, photography symbolizes these issues. Science is the brain, while photography is the heart and we need to reach people’s heart and emotions in order to move them to action, for Nature and for us.” 
SIMON BAXTER
“I try to make my photographs about experience and wanting to capture the very essence of what woodland, trees and nature mean to me. This love, connection and desire to celebrate the quiet corners of my local countryside has evolved into a level of understanding and care that compels me to give something back...my moral duty to take positive steps that enrich my relationship with nature and encourage change.” In 2018 Baxter used the proceeds from a raffle of his photography to set up “Trees for Life”, a project to help reforest Scotland’s Caledonian Forest.
GUY TAL’s photographs reveal patterns and structure in landscapes and can create what look like abstract forms. He believes the practice of creativity is not only about making art but can enrich life and facilitate meaning. He strives to “create images that speak to wildness. He considers his work “expressive art, in the sense that its primary purpose is to offer visual metaphors for thoughts and feelings, rather than to document appearances…rather than glimpses of the superficial beauty of the land…revealing something of my reverence for them.” 
MARC ADAMS believes the most important quality of a photograph is its ability to evoke an emotional response. He wants his viewers to know how precious wilderness lands are. “We need wilderness; now more than ever. The wilderness experience becomes ever more important to balance our lives as we become more industrialized and therefore bound within our own creations. This is because there exists within it a deep connection unlike anything that can be found in today’s intense world of instantly manufactured gratification…something much greater than ourselves.” 
SASKIA BOELSUMS’ work has been compared to Dutch old master paintings. “As a Dutch photographer, I carry a rich cultural heritage…that rich history helped shape me. At the same time it confronts me with the future. The beauty that I try to capture also hides uncertainty and an undefined threat. I see the skies become more dramatic, the weather is becoming more extreme, our climate is becoming more violent….the Dutch landscapes and skies are being pushed out by landscapes and skies that are the result of climate change. That is what I try to capture.” 
CHRIS BURKARD
Traveling throughout the year to pursue the farthest expanses of Earth, Burkard works to capture stories that inspire humans to consider their relationship with nature, while promoting the preservation of wild places. His work is intertwined with daring adventure and risk taking. “I think my goals with photography have always been to inspire people to create a world where the environment doesn't need protecting. If you spend enough time in nature you realize it's not just a good idea, but a calling you can't ignore.”
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