Adriene Hughes & DM Witman “Icebergs And Wildfires”

Klompching Gallery

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KLOMPCHING GALLERY presents its new Project Gallery, with the two-person exhibition Icebergs and Wildfires featuring the photographic artworks of Adriene Hughes and DM Witman.

Icebergs and Wildfires inaugurates the gallery’s expanded exhibition space, with a show that has been curated to be in-conversation with the featured solo exhibition—Anthem—in the main gallery.

Adriene Hughes’ Threaded Icebergs and Threaded Wildfires present a subtle statement upon environmental politics. Attention to this is brought about by handsewn threads, reminding us not only of the materiality of the photograph, but the vulnerability of nature and our cultural relationship to it. These are poetic images speaking about serious concerns. Each of the ten small-scale photographs are unique artworks, precious in size and revealing of nature. Alongside the dramatic icebergs of Greenland, are Californian forest scenes, imbued with a surreal coloration, brought about by infra-red photography diffused by wildfire smoke.

DM Witman’s work—Arctic Elegy—pays tribute to the disappearing icebergs of the Arctic. The historical photographs of William H. Pierce are appropriated and reconstructed, by combining red gouache with salt printing. In her statement about the series, and indeed the title itself, she clearly points to the idea, not of icebergs in the process of disappearing, but perhaps already having been i.e.—it’s already too late to halt their demise. In this context, while the salt print is a nod to the historical component of the work, the use of the color red might be seen to perform as a visual signal of distress. The five photographs on view are bold and graphic, reflecting a contemporary approach to 19th-century printing techniques.

Together, the two artists in Icebergs and Wildfires demonstrate an effective use of photographic techniques and application of materials—to bring attention to the serious subject of the state of the environment, in a manner that combines perfectly with the artists’ authorship and aesthetic.