The Hearth Gallery’s latest exhibition, Human & Nature, explores the intrigue and isolation of our depleting landscapes.
The show features photographers Cosmo Campbell, Marty Levenson and Dane Murner, with ceramicist Russell Hackney. Together, with the shared use of black and white palettes and organic forms, they reveal how our environments hold memories — a map of human decision.
Mundane objects and familiar scenes of our natural world quickly become tense and uncanny. The powerful feelings each piece evokes point to larger societal issues including climate grief, human consumption and the decay of old growth forests — concepts all too familiar to Bowen Island.
Campbell’s work explores the “vulnerability of our existence.” He describes this series as ‘simulated nocturnal photographs,’ with their monochromatic tone and high-resolution. Campbell is driven by the contemplative state of solitude, a haunting peace and simultaneous tension between beauty and loneliness.
Levenson reflects on Bowen’s 120-year-old logging history, and the place he also calls home. Exhibiting images from his series Elastic Forest, he documents a landscape that has been worn away by humans and nature alike; “[t]he resulting landscape is unequal parts battlefield, graveyard and nursery.”
Levenson aims to invoke a darker, less rational space of the mind through his photos. “Here the pretty and majestic standards of natural beauty we usually encounter yield to something deeper and less comfortable.”
Murner approaches photography almost as a form of therapy. What his lens investigates externally, simultaneously guides him to look inward, exploring his own mind.
His work captures the spaces and remnants of human intervention, while intentionally excluding any human subjects. Murner explains, “[t]his tension with our surrounding environment reveals ideas that were once forgotten or unconsidered.”
Hackney has a long family history working in ceramics. Most recently, he’s been creating larger, sculptural works in cast porcelain — as seen in this show. He describes his art process as a curiosity, “like ‘finding’ in a way.”
For Hackney, creating art is a way to communicate with his audience that he has found something beautiful or worth contemplating, “hoping that the viewer will be blessed or challenged by it.”
The exhibition runs from April 2 to 21 at The Hearth Gallery. Please join the artists on Bowen Island for the following events:
Artist pARTy: April 5, 6 to 8 pm
Artist Talk: April 12, 2 pm
Photography Walk: April 12, 3:15 pm
Ceramic Studio Visit, with Russell Hackney: April 13, 2 to 4 pm
Visit the Hearth Gallery website for more details, and to register for the free events!
