The Space Between
Clare Gallery
St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church
Hartford
Aug. 5, 2024
As the terrible flooding of western Connecticut just a few weeks ago demonstrates, climate change is not tomorrow’s problem. It’s here. Now.
So Jill Vaughn’s latest exhibition at the Clare Gallery, The Space Between, couldn’t be more timely. Vaughn, an artist based in Connecticut, has designed her mixed-media exhibition to focus on visualizing the environmental impact of human activity.
Vaughn chose symbols of environmental impact that are easy to understand both visually and because of the dramatic nature of the situation. Sand Waves with Lobsters is a striking piece thanks to its use of printed media as a monochromatic sand landscape for the colorful lobsters she places on the beach in contrast. The lobsters themselves appear to be made out of the images that accompanied the words they’re displayed on, although close examination reveals a few areas of text on the lobsters as well.
Lobsters are the perfect way to visualize the effects of climate change. Since 1999, the population of lobsters has catastrophically collapsed, and while pesticides were initially blamed, in the years since it has become clear that warming waters in the Sound are the culprit.
In First Came Ardi Then Plastic, Vaughn summons a swirling, cyclical storm of blues and grays to illustrate the eternal churning of the planet’s oceans. In the upper left hand corner in particular, it’s easy to make out a cresting wave. What would have otherwise been a simple, beautiful piece is marred by red streaking across its front. In the lower right, the red streak looks like a fishing net, just one piece of the estimated 200 million metric tons of plastic already in the ocean. The descendants of Ardi, an early human-like hominid, have arrived, and left their mark on the planet once again.
All Mapped Out layers different kinds of maps over each other as a way to show the globe that we inhabit in a different style. The word “wilderness” stands out in the lower part of the piece, and seems juxtaposed against the attempt to civilize the world by cataloging, measuring and quantifying it through the use of maps. The yellowed coloring of the maps gives the impression of a sickly, ailing planet that is suffering from human actions. Like the Ardi piece above, the red plastic clashes harshly with the rest of the materials used. But its placement shows that the top layer of the topography is plastics and other pollutants that sicken the land. The top of the artwork lists some of the agencies responsible for protecting the land, calling them out for their failures.
Vaughn’s artwork brings out a contradictory beauty in the horror of our climate emergency. She has used the very materials which threaten to destroy us to demonstrate the need for immediate action. Whether it’s to prevent more torrential rain from washing away lives and livelihood or to stop the extermination of non-human beings like the lobster, we must hear what Vaughn’s art, and the planet she is channeling, is crying out to us.
NEXT
The Space Between will be shown at the Clare Gallery through Oct.r 20. The artist’s reception will be held Sunday, Sept. 29 at 3 p.m., and a virtual panel discussion will be held Tuesday, Oct. 8 starting at 7:00 PM.
Jamil’s next event is a surprise. Stay tuned!
