Art out of fire

Due to a strange coincidence and the convergence of events, Ethan Turpin's first museum exhibition was opened in the Westmont Museum of Art in January when the forest fires of Los Angeles raged. Wildland: Ethan Turpins Cooperations on Fire and WaterIn the past ten years he has been promoted by Turpin's background as a conceptual artist and freelance photographer and filmmaker for the fire brigade of Santa Barbara and was in a timely, yet unpleasant synchronicity.

However, art and tragic realities accidentally met. However, the greater story behind the random timing refers to the ubiquitous and increasing threat from the fire, especially since climate change switches the natural order. This topic is part of the exhibition through the Turpin “Interdisciplinary Thinking, in which artists, scientists and media technology work together”.

WildlandThe previously full expression of artistic ideas that Turpin has shown in smaller doses and in group shows has also been a surprising ode to nature and a wake -up call to its fragility. Destruction and regeneration can take place through the natural fire process and the unnatural penetration of the climate change caused by humans.

Although the main work is the installation in the large gallery room of the museum, smaller Turpin works appear in the narrow entrance room. Turpin shows some of his retro-modern stereoscopic pictures as he was seen earlier Gilded garden Series and the play called “Clouds and Smoke”, in which a meeting of well -dressed picnic picnic from the late 19th century sits in order to look at the poisonous flags with obvious admiration that spit from factories over the river. The piece describes the blind innocence and belief in the progress of the early period of industrialization.

In order to enter the large main gallery, which is slightly illuminated and broadcast with ambient music sources, it should fall into a strangely meditative view (vision measurement). Peace becomes the sudden appearance of a forest fire and the sobering sound of crackling fire from the time lock video work “Walk to Wildfire”, in which Turpin seamlessly pictures of new plant growth and surprisingly insatiable strength sweeping everything on the way. The video compiled by clips, which was collected from 2015, also deals with the cyclical nature of nature.

The epic-scaled panoramic piece “Time Space Fire”, which was produced in collaboration with Udo Gyene and Tai Rodrig, includes a huge horizontal screen that is extended over almost a whole wall of the long museum. Some of the same recordings of peaceful nature and raging fire were exposed to a change in data to create an abstract impression that was freed from specificity, but sunbathe in the impressionist proposal.

In the digital photo collage “Tea Fire: Westmont”, a different kind of comparison of burns appears compared to non -murdered earth with an extremely localized color. Turpin used photos of Ray Ford and Brad Elliott from the devastating teafire from 2008, some of which burned the Westmont College, and created a visual narrative of contrasting landscape on the campus.

In another corner, the mood and color scheme rotates cooler and bluish, whereby the time reduction of the time extension “tree water”. Here the progress and the process of Water in nature take the attention of Turpin and employees (including Zach Gills Hypnotic drone/environment -music score). An art component with the lower tech in the same gallery zone finds Turpin in watercolor and ink on rags with “tree water: how water moves through the floor, plant and air”, with capacity of the artist and Naomi tague.

How impressive in parts and in all shown WildlandTurpin manages to move fluently between interests in art and science, which is becoming increasingly relevant in the entire art world. Timing is in the air: even more than political and social requirements, the state of nature is cause for concern and awe. Artists cannot help but take note of and inform and ignite our awareness.

Last week Turpins project logically ventured in front of the gallery to Westmonts lavish vegetation for Delutic trees: an outdoor installationin which videos (from Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith) were projected by burning embers onto trees that are actually affected by the tea fiery. The event also included the Evocative Commission String Quartet's “Agua Quemado”, from Westmont Music Professor Daniel Gee, poetry by Professor Emeritus Paul Willis, and comments by Montecito Fire Marshals Alex Broumand and Aaron Briner.

At the event, Turpin explained shortly after dark in a small pine grove on the campus: “The reason why we do this is to gain a healthy respect for a natural process. Through the production of art associations, it presents both beauty and the fire risk. I think it is sure to say that fire is beautiful. “

Another special family -oriented event that is attached to this Wildland Project is a special living earth: a family day of exploration on Saturday, March 1st. The exhibition can be seen until March 22nd. See westmont.edu/wildland For details.