Curated by Sarah Zhang ’23 and Isabel Smith ’24
skies beneath my feet is a new exhibition that will be on display in the Spencer Lobby of the Chambers Academic Building starting February 10th, 2022. It centers around a spiritual connection to nature — through time, through mediums, through places. It is a return to the earth, a reimagining of how we live and eat and work and die. skies beneath my feet is inspired by the outdoor exhibition “Unshadowed Land,” which buries the outline of an Andrew Jackson monument and plants in its place Catawba corn, a crop cultivated by the Catawba people indigenous to this land. This corn does not need to be watered and instead grows solely from rainwater. The land takes care of it. The land takes care of us.
In Ecstasy of Tom and Wild Mustard Wrapped in Crinkly Plastic, the artist Raymond Grubb photographs his partner of thirty-five years, Tom Thoune, who appears naked, eyes closed, and sitting peacefully behind yellow flowers. There is a calmness to the work, a spiritual connection between human and nature, where it becomes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It is vibrant yet calm, and the yellow carries a sense of hope for the future: what if we returned to nature? Became one with it? Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze’s work, skies on my left an skies beneath my feet. the pools, open. the windows, transport, carries this spiritual connection that skies beneath my feet focuses on: the idea of the sky surrounding you, above you and below you, as birds fly, singing. There is a symmetry, a simplicity, a knowledge that the viewer is part of something greater. The geometric shapes reveal the patterns and omnipotence in nature, which form lines, shapes, and whole ecosystems seemingly unthinkingly.
The Power/Dude Knolling, Dickinson County, Kansas, a small, black and white photograph, captures a man water dowsing, or “water watching,” a practice using objects such as forked sticks or rods to locate underground water and minerals with the belief that the stick would suddenly jerk downward when approaching a water source. Attentively, the man grips the stick, through which he achieves an inexplicable and primitive connection to the land. A simple wood stick, which may seem senseless, allowed a crude way of knowing before the invention of technologies. Through touch and feeling, the man immerses himself in nature and instinctively follows his senses and beliefs to explore the wilderness. At first sight, The World and Her Double is nothing like this photograph. It situates us in a fanciful wonderland, bewildered by the artist’s bizarre portraits, psychedelic collages of flora and fauna, and undulating patterns of water. Macroscopic landscapes and microscopic elements of nature are collapsed onto the surface of the canvas, creating a rich constellation of visual experiences spread out across time and space. In a spiritual manner, the artist Iruka Maria Toro reimagines her environment, resituates her body and thereby addresses her identity.
All of the works in the exhibition are available for view here.
– Sarah Zhang ’23 and Isabel Smith ’24