TRUSTING NATURE
Yumi Janairo Roth and Katherine Sherwood
Opening Reception: 6 - 9pm, Saturday, August 5th, 2023
Rare Visions Gallery Project
455 College Ave, Boulder, CO
Hours by appointment only:
303.489.8946 | alexstark1321@gmail.com
Katherine Sherwood, Bread (After Josefa de Obidos), 2019. Mixed media on found cotton duck, 28"H x 70"W
Rare Visions presents Trusting Nature, featuring work by Katherine Sherwood and Yumi Janairo Roth.
In their respective practices, both artists are considering history and background in relation to identity. Both Sherwood and Roth consider nature as a way to describe a place or feeling as they invite viewers to more closely examine the significance of nature in relation to setting.
In her work, Sherwood recontextualizes disability and the female body in relation to classical and medieval paintings. Her work focuses on both figurative imagery and nature and still lifes. The figures she draws reference older paintings and show the body posed with items related to disability such as leg or arm braces and wheelchairs. These figures often have brain scans appearing as an intense patterning on faces that emote a strength and ferocity. Her botanical works are based on post-Impressionist and 17th century Dutch flower paintings. Sherwood describes these works as "exploring the transient nature of existence."
Roth draws on her background and experience as a second-generation Filipino American in relation to immigration and Western culture through site-responsive installation. Her work spans from performative and existing in the moment to object based works. Roth brings attention to simple objects of cultural significance like tumbleweeds that relate to romantic images of the expansive Wild West but are in fact an invasive species. She collects tumbleweeds from the Colorado plains and meticulously repairs them by forging silver to replace broken stems.
While together in the Rare Visions space, the artists' works celebrate the natural beauty of the Colorado landscape. At the same time, the artists are bringing their own ideas and understanding of historical representations of nature. In Trusting Nature, the artists allow for the mingling of their respective practices to recontextualize traditional imagery of and share a reverence towards nature.