collage exploring the current climate crisis through Octavia Butler's Parable Series

I Had My Recurring Dream Last Night, 2024
Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic
18x24”

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When I Escaped From The Neighborhood It Was Burning, 2024
Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic
18x24”

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We are Earthlife Preparing to Fall Away From The Parent World, 2024
Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic
26x33,” Naomi White

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Photos of exhibition by @pamelagarciaphotoevents

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KEYSTONE GALLERY PRESENTS

LANDSCAPES OF ILLUSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES:
MAPS, MATERIALS AND THE LENS

Participating Artists: Alicia Piller | Beth Davila Waldman | Naomi White

Landscapes of Illusions and Possibilities is a response to this tumultuous moment in time through a photographic lens. Themes of empowerment, intersectional abolitionist feminism, hope and healing run through these works. Notions of navigation, mapping, border crossing, fluidity and flux occur, with the conceit that everything changes. Transformation is how we survive.

Thinking through and with historical theories on landscape and power, including Octavia Butler’s Parable series, the work contends with the importance and inevitability of change. Tearing into photographs holds open places in the land for stolen, lost, misremembered stories, and stories that are yet to be written. Transformation is required for survival. Transformation is the key to transcending our current situation, from climate change to genocide. According to WJT Mitchell, the landscape is not just something to be looked at but a process, like art, activated by choices and labor. Disrupting old surveyor photographs of the West as symbols for past and current oppressive systems of settler colonialism, we encounter hope and resiliency.

Thirty million years ago, early humans evolved the ability to see color, initially distinguishing only between red and green to identify edible berries and food. Over time, as our vision adapted and expanded to detect a wider spectrum of colors, we developed the ability to perceive all colors effortlessly. Similarly, our capacity to envision worlds beyond corporate greed and human suffering is evolving. Just as our perception of color has grown more refined, we can also hone our ability to imagine and work towards a more just and equitable future taking shape.

Time Enters The Landscape, 44x61", mixed media
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Close Up of Time Enters The Landscape

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Close Up of Time Enters The Landscape

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All That You Touch You Change, All That You Change, Changes You, 2024, Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic, 18x24”

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Radical Hope in Tumultuous Waters, 2024, Original and found photographs, archival pigment prints, archival glue, fire and ash, encaustic, 18x24”

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Beth Davila Waldman, 

Divisions No. 7, 2021

38x77in

Archival Pigment, Gel and Acrylic Paint on Tarp with Grommets, Beth Davila Waldman (left)

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Landscapes of Illusions and Possibilities, front room of gallery

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Landscapes of Illusions and Possibilities, back room of gallery
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Alicia Piller, Tectonic Plates, Shifting, Polls, 2022

14.75”H X 20”W X 18”D

mixed media

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Alicia Piller,

Pathways, Mapping Injustices, 2021.
56”H X 67”W X 7”D
mixed media
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Alicia Piller, Overhead Views. Visionary Pathways, 2024.

64”H x 44”W x 33”D 

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Beth Davila Waldman, Divisions series

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Photographs from this exhibition are by my former student, NYFA MFA Alumni, Pamela Garcia @pamelagarciaphotoevents

Alicia Piller, Naomi White, Beth Davila Waldman, September 2024

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Interview and article by Karen Romero for Red Canary Magazine
https://redcanarycollective.org/magazine/naomi-white-interview/

Article and Interview in Red Canary Magazine 

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