Sara Nightingale Gallery in Sag Harbor presents “Re-Wilding: JoAnne Carson and Suzanne Unrein” opening Saturday, October 22, 5 to 7 PM. The exhibition will run through November 21.
For painters JoAnne Carson and Suzanne Unrein, nature is a verb. Both artists envision a dynamic and hybridized natural world, where animals and plants — both real and imagined — flourish against all odds.
The recent environmental conservation movement known as rewilding aims to return managed areas back to nature, eventually allowing wildlife and natural processes to take over without human intervention. Carson and Unrein, however, do not necessarily seek autonomy for their creatures, nor do they take an anti-human approach. Rather, by imbuing their subjects with anthropomorphic characteristics and emotions, they emphasize connectedness, empathy and intimacy with nature — even if their imagined universes are shape-shifting and wild.
Carson’s work has been shown extensively, including solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Zillman Art Museum in Bangor, Maine. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy in Rome Prix de Rome, an Award in the Visual Arts, and a purchase prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others.
Carson’s work has been exhibited in a Whitney Biennial Exhibition, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Ceremonial Exhibition, the Albright Knox Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Sheldon Art Museum. Carson’s work is eloquently described in the attached essay by Dan Cameron’s essay, “A Return to Eden.”
Unrein’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S, including numerous solo shows at Rare Gallery (New York, NY), Mitte Projects (Miami, FL & New York, NY), Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX,) Boltax Gallery at the Next Art Fair (Chicago, IL,) the Sara Nightingale Gallery (Sag Harbor) and Boltax Gallery (Shelter Island.)
Unrein’s work was recently spotlighted in The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization (Oxford University Press) and the focus of the short film, “Hands & Eyes,” that premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Her work is in the public collections of the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, Jersey City, NJ; the U.S. Embassy, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Fish & Game, Hudson, NY; and The Kevin Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary, Pretoria, South Africa.