ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

THE NATURE OF NOW and THE SUGARCANE LABYRINTH 

Curated  by Pamala Bishop

Curatorial Statement

The Nature of Now is a group exhibition. The collection of works serve as new tapestry; a multi-sensory experience of aesthetic thread woven together to create a lyrical story. Suspended between dissonant views of naturalism, existential thought, and fantasy, the show is a labyrinthian journey focused on the impasse of nature and man.

The Nature of Now is a conversation with the environment; a dialogue that purposefully seeks to disorient the viewer and confound the authority of human thought. Each of the artists uses land and organic materials as partial-medium, positing a non-anthropomorphic viewpoint for self-inquiry and to prompt reevaluation of our own ecological stewardship within the natural environment. The show seeks to unhinge the rationality of the anthropologist and assimilate into such thought the wild chaos inherent to nature.

The work probes at-risk culture and ecology, specifically that of Louisiana in connection to it’s own nativity, touching thematically on concepts such as eucatastrophe and dues ex machina. By examining the systemic order of nature and interpreting the ecological implications of human modification, the work becomes a platform for discussing and bringing awareness to contemporaneous issues surrounding ecological sustainability and the threat it poses to a disappearing land

About the Curator 

Pamala Bishop is an independent curator based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has worked on both the local and international scale, exhibiting and producing works with artists such as: Eleanor Antin, Robert Tannen, Mel Chin, Edward Burtinsky, Dawn DeDeaux, and others. She has collaborated with non-profit organizations, galleries and artist-run spaces, and her work has been featured in magazines and articles such as Art in America, The New York Times, and The Times Picayune. In 2010, Pamala founded META, an artist residency program in Sonoma, California, where emerging and mid-career artists could live and experiment with agriculture and land art practice. Pamala currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana.