When There Were No Maps and No Borders: Grandeur of Nature

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The exhibition When There Were No Maps and No Borders: The Grandeur of Nature presents fourteen artists concerned with our planet's future. Climate change, pandemics, involuntary migration, racial discrimination, conflicts, wars – the crises our Anthropocene era have inflicted on our Earth – are the focus of their artworks. They warn us of the dramatic escalation of these events: that so-called “natural” disasters are not random events, but rather a consequence of humanity's actions towards the planet. It is a planetary form of revenge, for which we are responsible.

Ten Connecticut-based and four international artists, hailing from such diverse parts of the globe as India and Germany, have created paintings, installations, photographs, and videos documenting the deterioration of our most basic natural resources without regard to geography or national borders.

The artists chronicle “what if” scenarios: will our technology, which we so deeply believe in, turn on us? Will we fall victim to our greed for natural resources? They evoke a sense of remorse that prompts us to confront our role in the degradation of the natural environment. They point out the timeless endurance of nature, which will abide long after the climate and resources necessary to sustain human life have vanished. They forcefully articulate the urgency of the task that lies before us.

This exhibition is a critical component of Eastern’s fourth consecutive National Endowment of the Arts, Big Read Award –Andrew Krivak's novel, The Bear (2019). The title of this exhibition originates from Krivak’s earlier novel, The Sojourn (2012), which describes a primordial place – a land “of no maps or borders, no rifles or artillery, no men or wars to claim possession of land, and snow and rock alone parried in a match of millennial slowness…” The land, in its ancient grandeur before human greed descended upon it, weaves a vivid thread through Krivak’s writing.

The participating artists echo this lament when they bemoan our human depredations of a once virgin globe. Whether through a series of deep blue cyanotypes of leaf silhouettes and burst-like shadows - a nod to the early pioneers of botanical illustration by Rebecca Clark; a family of organic, cloud-like forms growing upwards to the top of a ten feet wall and out onto the gallery floor by Maggie Nowinski; or stylized mushrooms assembled into a grove of alien flora by Tamara Dimitri; untamed nature fills the gallery. Peter Waite’s stark, desolate painting is dominated by two mountainous formations of salt left after the winter near East Hartford, CT; Phoebe Godfrey’s The Womb of Creation – a stylized female reproductive system (a uterus rendered in a rusty brown metal) conveys both strength and vulnerability; Dan Long’s photographs of antique maps and exotic relicts indulge in the lure of the marvelous and wondrous. David Holzman’s wood sculpture resembles Noah’s Ark, densely populated with numerous figures and motifs, heading out to safety of primordial land; Brian Keith Stephens’ depictions of animals in their natural habitats suggests the interconnectedness of all living beings; Joyce Kozloff portrays the power of a malicious molecular to swipe the entire planet only three years ago; Rani Jha moans the brutality of Nepal’s earthquake in her contemporary revision of Madhubani painting’s centuries-long tradition; Ravi Agrawal forces us to see the hostile power of the Ganges River, when angered by human pollution; Priti Samyukta’s self-portraits, on pieces of worn denim quilted in the style of Gee’s Bend quilters, reflects our wide ranging cultural interconnectedness; and Mechthild Schmidt Feist’s maps of the journeys of displaced persons refer to the plight of human migrations. We find consolation in Tim Kussow’s two wooden houses: one is filled with party balloons, the other is empty, blurring boundaries between work and play, the evocative encaustics by Maura O’Connor that exhumes solitude. Like Krivak’s narration, all of the artists in this exhibition suggest that, although humans have harmed the land and urgently need to reverse course, Mother Nature is compassionate. We need only to ask forgiveness.

When There Were No Maps and No Borders invites us to step into dreamlike realms where nature’s grandeur is both awe-inspiring and humbling. It will not harm us, but we must learn to protect it. Krivak’s story teaches us we must seek unity with nature, and our artists emphatically echo his sentiments. Julia Wintner, Art Gallery Director, 2024