Join this multigenerational group of artists who all address environmental issues from different vantage points—Juror Lillian Ball, her two selectees Scott Bluedorn and Janet Culbertson, and Irina Alimanestianu (selected by Alexis Rockman)—as they converse with ecologist Carl Safina about how art and science can interact to draw attention to these issues. Moderated by Corinne Erni, Senior Curator of ArtsReach and Special Projects. The program will take place in the Lichtenstein Theater, followed by informal visits to the galleries.

An ecological artist and pro-activist who works with wetland issues from interdisciplinary backgrounds in anthropology, ethnographic film, and sculpture, Lillian Ball (American, b. 1955) believes that innovative artwork with stakeholders on conservation initiatives benefits wildlife, communities, and visitors. Her WATERWASH® public projects along the Bronx River and Mattituck Inlet combine native habitat restoration, stormwater remediation, and preservation. Ball’s documentary Sanctuary depicts efforts by a Buddhist monk to preserve native flora and fauna in Lumbini, Nepal, to protect the Sarus cranes nesting at Buddha’s birthplace, endangered by over-development. Ball exhibits and lectures at international institutions including at Kathmandu’s Taragaon Museum; Seville Biennale; and Reina Sofia, Madrid. Awards include NYFA Fellowships, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and NEA grant.

Irina Alimanestianu’s (American, b. 1957) paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York, and her writings on art and artists have appeared in Art Issues and other publications. On view in Artists Choose Artists is the mixed media, large-scale painting Deep Sea Vent (2017), which combines oil, ink, pencil, glitter, and watercolor on oil paper in an explosion of organic shapes and dynamic color. Akin to the way natural elements or instances in life seek equilibrium after disruption, the artist introduces chaos before returning to harmony. Born in Nyack, NY, and raised in New York, Switzerland, and France, Alimanestianu has a BFA from New York University, an MBA from Columbia University, and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University.

Scott Bluedorn (American, b. 1986) addresses climate change by integrating cultural anthropology, primitivism, and nautical tradition into his imagery that speaks to the collective unconscious, particularly through myth and visual storytelling, in a world he refers to as “maritime cosmology.” His new large-scale drawing Genesis Flux is a surreal vision of climactic upheaval, including change, renewal, and flux in the unnatural Anthropocene era and sixth mass extinction. The drawing Integrated Ocean Energy Farm is the artist’s proposition to repurpose existing structures like oil drilling platforms into floating multipurpose ‘farms’ for growing kelp (for food, biofuels, and regenerative ecosystem services), while combining value-added energy production including solar, wind, and wave power. Bluedorn, who received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2009), lives and works in East Hampton, NY.

Through her extensive travels to experience the planet, eco-feminist and activist Janet Culbertson (American, b. 1932) has painted the dark volcanic islands of the Galapagos, the vanishing animals of Africa, and the degradation of the earth’s once wild places. Galapagos Tortoise (1975), a 90 x 72 inch portrait on view in Artists Choose Artists, is majestic even as the creature seems to fade and decompose; Abyss (1976–2003) is an unapologetic representation of a dystopic exploitation of nature. Culbertson, who lives and works in Shelter Island, NY, was raised in Western Pennsylvania, where she attended Carnegie Mellon University. She relocated to New York in 1954 to earn her Masters from NYU, and taught painting at Pace University and Pratt Art Institute.

Carl Safina is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University (where he formerly co-chaired the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science), and he leads the not-for-profit Safina Center. His writing about the living world has won a MacArthur “Genius” Award, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. His seabird studies earned him a PhD in ecology from Rutgers. Safina spent a decade working to ban high-seas drift nets and to overhaul U.S. fishing policy and hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean. He is author of Song for the Blue Ocean; and his seventh book is Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel.