Catching Fire
resilient alchemies in a burning worldJune 20 - August 29, 2026
Free & Open to the public
Saturdays & Sundays 1:00 - 5:00 pm
& by appointment
Opening Reception
Saturday, June 27, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Extended hours for Upstate Art Weekend
Thursday, June 25 - Monday, June 29
12:00 - 5:00 pm
The exhibition is curated by Alison McNulty and includes works by:
Emil Alzamora
Gerardo Castro
Marcy Chevali
Daniel Giordano
Shanti Grumbine
Alison Kudlow
David Licata
Processing Collapse (Michael Asbill & Ripley Butterfield)
Zachary Skinner
Catching Fire: resilient alchemies in a burning world brings together nine artists whose work engages fire as a volatile force and regenerative catalyst, bearing witness to the ways heat, pressure, and combustion shape our material and emotional lives. Across sculpture, installation, painting, sound, photography, and works on paper the exhibition, curated by Gallery Director Alison McNulty, includes work by Hudson Valley and NYC artists Emil Alzamora, Marcy Chevali, Daniel Giordano, Shanti Grumbine, Alison Kudlow, David Licata, Processing Collapse (Michael Asbill and Ripley Butterfield), and Zachary Skinner, along with the posthumous work of celebrated Newburgh artist, Gerardo Castro.
Through structural and adaptive transformations that engage politics, material culture, ecology and the environment, this exhibition unfolds through unraveling and overlapping poetics. While some artists harness flame and heat as a means of material manipulation from one state to another, others document and imagine the releasing and healing potential of burning. Creative alchemy, both literal and metaphorical, stands as a testament to the transient –and transcendent—nature of matter and bodies in an era marked by ecological precarity and political volatility.
The Exhibition Guide can be downloaded here.
Special Events at Ann Street Gallery
Gallery Walkthroughs with curator Alison McNulty and the artists:
Sunday, August 16, 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Emil Alzamora
Daniel Giordano
Alison Kudlow
Michael Gabor (on behalf of
Gerardo Castro)
Saturday, August 22, 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Marcy Chevali
David Licata
Zachary Skinner
Shanti Grumbine (introducing
Curated Reading List 011)
Learn more here.
Shanti Grumbine’s annotated curated reading list for our Open Reading Room can be downloaded here.
All events are free and open to the public;
space limited where RSVP requested
Postcard image courtesy of the artist
Flaming Bud by Alison Kudlow
Ceramic, wrought iron, found hookah parts, candle, flame
50 x 28 x 18”
2023
In my studio practice I harness a wide range of materials and techniques to deliver unexpected interpretations of the sculpted human figure. I often transform the figure to reveal an emotional or physical situation, or to tell a story. I have a keen interest in the physical properties of the materials I use. This combined with a hands-on approach allows for the process to reveal and inform at once the aesthetic and the conceptual. I am interested in presenting the human figure as though seen through a myriad of filters which might reveal the often unseen forces that affect our lives in subtle ways.
Head 9
Aluminum
13.25 x 5.25 x 3.5”, unique
2022
Dryad 2
Cast aluminum, resin
42 x 13 x 14”, unique
2018
Lamb
Ceramic
16 x 13 x 4”, unique
2017
Waymaker
Steel, plaster, graphite wax
84 x 22 x 24”
2021
Fire Indigo
Indigo is associated in many cultures with magical and spiritual rituals – probably because of the processes of change it goes through which looks dull green in a vat, emerging into the air- transformed to a vivid blue. Enslaved Africans carried the knowledge of indigo cultivation to the United States, and in the 1700s, the profits from indigo outpaced those of sugar and cotton. Through simple forms and a straightforward presentation I strive to present the viewer with a color so rich that they are entranced by “burnings” and examine all that lies within a color’s substance. Powerful and dignified, indigo conveys integrity and deep sincerity.
Spiritual Fire
Emanationism is a cosmological theory which asserts that all things “flow” from an underlying principle or reality, usually called the Absolute or Godhead. Any teachings which involve emanation are usually in opposition to “creation out of nothing” as emanation advocates that everything has always existed and has not been “created” from nothing. We ignorantly believe in the adequacy and assumption that what we don’t see does not exist. If you create sharp divisions and cling to narrow definitions of subject and object, whatever you see will always appear in the context of those limitations.
Indigo is associated in many cultures with magical and spiritual rituals – probably because of the processes of change it goes through which looks dull green in a vat, emerging into the air- transformed to a vivid blue. Enslaved Africans carried the knowledge of indigo cultivation to the United States, and in the 1700s, the profits from indigo outpaced those of sugar and cotton. Through simple forms and a straightforward presentation I strive to present the viewer with a color so rich that they are entranced by “burnings” and examine all that lies within a color’s substance. Powerful and dignified, indigo conveys integrity and deep sincerity.
Spiritual Fire
Emanationism is a cosmological theory which asserts that all things “flow” from an underlying principle or reality, usually called the Absolute or Godhead. Any teachings which involve emanation are usually in opposition to “creation out of nothing” as emanation advocates that everything has always existed and has not been “created” from nothing. We ignorantly believe in the adequacy and assumption that what we don’t see does not exist. If you create sharp divisions and cling to narrow definitions of subject and object, whatever you see will always appear in the context of those limitations.
Presence
Burning on Arches oil paper, oil paint
6 x 2’
2016
Closer
Burning on paper
6 x 2’
2015
A net can be used to keep dangerous things away from us or to keep precious or fragile things safe and close to us. I make nets out of glass, using a very specific and controlled flame to melt and bend rods of glass. Fire is sometimes though of as something destructive and fear inducing. However in this body work, the torch is very generative. Although glass is breakable, these sculptures have the strength of the grid. If one area is compromised, the remainder of the piece retains its strength as it is reinforced at each connection. It can also be reintroduced to the torch to repair any cracks in the same way that it was originally made.
In these pieces, brass wire hangs slack from the glass instead of continuing the contour of the glass seamlessly. I’m interested in these shifts and how they can be metaphors. This work has themes of transformation, interconnectedness and resilience. Similar to fire, it has a purity and sense of ephemerality.
In these pieces, brass wire hangs slack from the glass instead of continuing the contour of the glass seamlessly. I’m interested in these shifts and how they can be metaphors. This work has themes of transformation, interconnectedness and resilience. Similar to fire, it has a purity and sense of ephemerality.
Untitled
Flameworked borosilicate glass and knit brass wire
8 x 19.5 x 7”
2026
Untitled
Flameworked borosilicate glass and brass wire
28 x 9 x 7”
15 x 8 x 9”
2025
Untitled
Flameworked borosilicate glass and brass wire
45 x 9 x 9” (approx.)
2026
My sculptures rise out of the “American Berserk,” embodying the bawdy and satirical. I bring an irreverent fury-fueled trickster mentality towards making embellished imaginings of loved ones and my post-industrial hometown of Newburgh, NY. I use an array of materials that are potent with personally imbued meaning that converge into multifaceted vignettes.
My sculptures range from intimate objects to large-scale constructions. I stockpile materials in my studio that have long fascinated me, such as discarded “clinker” bricks, deer bones, and water caltrops from the shoreline of the Hudson River. I combine these elements with carved wood, handbuilt ceramic, and cast aluminum components I produce en masse. I fashion custom tools, invent procedures, and decadently apply surface treatments from substances that relate to the body, such as lipstick, marzipan, and urinal cake. I immortalize these materials - which are inextricably linked to specific memories from my life - with a thorough drenching of various resins and sealants, resulting in portraits embodying everything that is meaningful to me.
I conduct serious play while experimenting with color combinations, textures, and light’s interactions with disparate surfaces. These works are charged with the full spectrum of emotions I experience throughout the production process. I consider a sculpture complete when it holds a commanding presence.
The My Immaculate Conception vein of work consists of lichen adhered to conglomerated groggy bricks that I find along the shoreline of the Hudson River. The form consists of tendrils jutting from the anchored mass. This vein of work is reminiscent of motifs found in historical annunciation paintings, specifically the radiating lines from the angels to the Virgin Mary. The materials are personally significant and collectively symbolic of my Newburgh, NY.
My vein of Pleasure Pipes revels in the legacy of my grandfather, Frank Giordano, who enjoyed smoking tobacco out of a wooden pipe.
My sculptures range from intimate objects to large-scale constructions. I stockpile materials in my studio that have long fascinated me, such as discarded “clinker” bricks, deer bones, and water caltrops from the shoreline of the Hudson River. I combine these elements with carved wood, handbuilt ceramic, and cast aluminum components I produce en masse. I fashion custom tools, invent procedures, and decadently apply surface treatments from substances that relate to the body, such as lipstick, marzipan, and urinal cake. I immortalize these materials - which are inextricably linked to specific memories from my life - with a thorough drenching of various resins and sealants, resulting in portraits embodying everything that is meaningful to me.
I conduct serious play while experimenting with color combinations, textures, and light’s interactions with disparate surfaces. These works are charged with the full spectrum of emotions I experience throughout the production process. I consider a sculpture complete when it holds a commanding presence.
The My Immaculate Conception vein of work consists of lichen adhered to conglomerated groggy bricks that I find along the shoreline of the Hudson River. The form consists of tendrils jutting from the anchored mass. This vein of work is reminiscent of motifs found in historical annunciation paintings, specifically the radiating lines from the angels to the Virgin Mary. The materials are personally significant and collectively symbolic of my Newburgh, NY.
My vein of Pleasure Pipes revels in the legacy of my grandfather, Frank Giordano, who enjoyed smoking tobacco out of a wooden pipe.
My Immaculate Conception I
24 karat gold, acrylic paint, brass, bricks, cattails, ceramic, codfish skin dog treats, deep-fried batter, epoxy, eyeshadow, goatskin cockring, hosiery, Instapak Quick foam, kudu horn, lichen, Megan Murphy Martinez’s hair, mesh polypropylene, Murano glass, nail polish, Northeast Fast-Dry tennis court surface, phosphorescent acrylic, plastic bags, plastic wrap, pomade, ribbon, shellac, silicone, sparklers, spitballs (acrylic polymer emulsion, saliva, toilet paper, pigment), table base, Tang drink mix, tennis balls, tomato cage, urinal cake, water caltrop
74 x 24 x 95”
2013 - 2021
Pleasure Pipe series
Multi-media
Dimensions variable
2019 - 2023
Sturgoune
Acrylic polymer emulsion, aluminum, bison tail, brass, cable ties, cattails, ceramic, deep-fried batter, epoxy, eyeshadow, glass bottle, high heeled shoe, hosiery, Megan Murphy Martinez’s hair, milk paint, nail polish, Northeastern Fast-Dry tennis court surface, pigment, plastic bags, plastic wrap, pomade, shellac, silicone, sparklers, steel coat hangers, Tang drink mix, tennis balls, thread, upholstery foam, urinal cake, vitamin B12, water caltrop
87.5 x 48 x 24”
2016 - 2021
Kenosis Project
Kenosis is an ancient Greek noun for emptiness or an emptying. In my project Kenosis, I utilize the erasure and excision of the New York Times newspaper to elicit a sacred experience of the everyday. By physically removing content, I make space for what has been censored in media and lost in the translation of experience into words. I source ancient narrative formats such as commemorative paper cutting, illuminated manuscripts, medieval musical scores, and stained glass - formal foils for the speed of current events. The acidic nature of newspaper and its rapid shift in color aids the association of time passing, highlighting the fragility of the page and the imminent dissolution of print.
Score Project
Score extends the concerns of Kenosis through a screen-printed musical score derived from excised New York Times articles reporting on the NATO-led Koran burnings at the Parwan Detention Center and the subsequent protests and uprisings that spread throughout Afghanistan between February and March 2012. The title refers both to a musical score and to the act of scoring—cutting the surface with an X-ACTO knife.
Through the removal of text and image, I create space for silence and breath. Left behind are only headlines and pull quotes: fragments suspended within the empty journalistic grid. These residual forms resemble neumes—the square notes of medieval chant notation whose name derives from the Greek word for breath. Drawn to this connection, I used the architecture of the newspaper page to reveal a latent melody that moves through the articles over time, tracing the arc of a story from its emergence in the public consciousness to its disappearance from coverage.
The surviving pull-quotes function as lyrics. By overlaying a four-line medieval staff and letting the newspaper columns determine the time signature, I transformed the page into a performable score. Melody becomes a system of preservation, carrying information through sound rather than print. Referencing oral traditions of communication, prayer, and collective memory, the score can be read, sung, performed, and passed from person to person as a chant, slowing the onslaught of churning news content.
Cease Fire Project
After creating Score, I was left with the images I removed from the news articles covering the Koran burnings and subsequent uprisings in Afghanistan. I decided to burn the images as offerings - a symbolic acknowledgment of the cultural ignorance that often shapes international affairs, and of the way that one sensational story quickly replaces another in the consciousness of the privileged reader. This gesture reflects on the chain reaction of fires, the ignorant and incendiary act of burning the Korans in the first place, then the rage, protests, and gunfire ignited across Afghanistan. Through this act of transformation, I consider how images circulate, disappear, and are forgotten, while their consequences remain.
Genizah Project
Genizah is an extension of Kenosis. Borrowing its title from the Jewish practice of preserving damaged sacred texts in a genizah, the work considers what is retained, concealed, and flawed within language. Through scoring, excision, and reconfiguration, I gesture toward censorship, bias, and the ruptures trauma leaves in speech and memory. At a moment when both journalism and materiality feel increasingly precarious, these interventions function as acts of witness, care, and devotion, visually preserving the form and movement of loss.
Kenosis is an ancient Greek noun for emptiness or an emptying. In my project Kenosis, I utilize the erasure and excision of the New York Times newspaper to elicit a sacred experience of the everyday. By physically removing content, I make space for what has been censored in media and lost in the translation of experience into words. I source ancient narrative formats such as commemorative paper cutting, illuminated manuscripts, medieval musical scores, and stained glass - formal foils for the speed of current events. The acidic nature of newspaper and its rapid shift in color aids the association of time passing, highlighting the fragility of the page and the imminent dissolution of print.
Score Project
Score extends the concerns of Kenosis through a screen-printed musical score derived from excised New York Times articles reporting on the NATO-led Koran burnings at the Parwan Detention Center and the subsequent protests and uprisings that spread throughout Afghanistan between February and March 2012. The title refers both to a musical score and to the act of scoring—cutting the surface with an X-ACTO knife.
Through the removal of text and image, I create space for silence and breath. Left behind are only headlines and pull quotes: fragments suspended within the empty journalistic grid. These residual forms resemble neumes—the square notes of medieval chant notation whose name derives from the Greek word for breath. Drawn to this connection, I used the architecture of the newspaper page to reveal a latent melody that moves through the articles over time, tracing the arc of a story from its emergence in the public consciousness to its disappearance from coverage.
The surviving pull-quotes function as lyrics. By overlaying a four-line medieval staff and letting the newspaper columns determine the time signature, I transformed the page into a performable score. Melody becomes a system of preservation, carrying information through sound rather than print. Referencing oral traditions of communication, prayer, and collective memory, the score can be read, sung, performed, and passed from person to person as a chant, slowing the onslaught of churning news content.
Cease Fire Project
After creating Score, I was left with the images I removed from the news articles covering the Koran burnings and subsequent uprisings in Afghanistan. I decided to burn the images as offerings - a symbolic acknowledgment of the cultural ignorance that often shapes international affairs, and of the way that one sensational story quickly replaces another in the consciousness of the privileged reader. This gesture reflects on the chain reaction of fires, the ignorant and incendiary act of burning the Korans in the first place, then the rage, protests, and gunfire ignited across Afghanistan. Through this act of transformation, I consider how images circulate, disappear, and are forgotten, while their consequences remain.
Genizah Project
Genizah is an extension of Kenosis. Borrowing its title from the Jewish practice of preserving damaged sacred texts in a genizah, the work considers what is retained, concealed, and flawed within language. Through scoring, excision, and reconfiguration, I gesture toward censorship, bias, and the ruptures trauma leaves in speech and memory. At a moment when both journalism and materiality feel increasingly precarious, these interventions function as acts of witness, care, and devotion, visually preserving the form and movement of loss.
Incendiary (Kenosis)
De-acidified New York Times newspaper
28 x 18” framed, signed on the back
2012
Kenotic Times Score #1, Koran Burning NATO Blunder
16 screen-printed pages in handmade custombound folio by Hudson River Bindery, acrylic gouache, artist proof
Dimensions variable unframe
2012
Kenotic Times Score #1, Koran Burning NATO Blunder
Voice: Shanti Grumbine and Julia Taylor, Cello: Julia Taylor, arranged by Shanti Grumbine, produced by Shanti Grumbine and Sahra Motalebi
5 minutes and 5 seconds
2012
Cease Fire #1
Archival pigment print
8 x 11”
2012
Surge (Genizah)
De-acidified New York Times newspaper, jade glue, matte medium, UV varnish, nails, magnets
22 x 30” unframed, signed on the back
2015
Remnants Offer Hints (Genizah)
De-acidified New York Times newspaper, jade glue, matte medium, UV varnish
28 x 23.5” framed, signed on the back
2017
Alison Kudlow captures material in mid-motion, resulting in works that are best described with verbs rather than nouns. Conceptualizing the kiln as a condensed model of geological formation, she creates a set of pressures with heat and gravity to which her materials react. With glass oozing, bulging and frothing from ceramic forms, each sculpture feels precarious, like a moment that cannot possibly last.
Often experimenting to develop new processes, Kudlow transforms ephemeral circumstances into tangible objects. She embodies unseen forces in material to slow time and expand a moment. Her work is a response to grief, both personal and environmental.
Viewers may find moments of readability—a petal, a fin, a mouth—and a fleshiness that tells us these might be bodies, but fundamentally they refuse language and categorization. Their slipperiness connotes infinite fluid possibilities and any empathy toward them provides a moment of connection with the unknown and unknowable.
Often experimenting to develop new processes, Kudlow transforms ephemeral circumstances into tangible objects. She embodies unseen forces in material to slow time and expand a moment. Her work is a response to grief, both personal and environmental.
Viewers may find moments of readability—a petal, a fin, a mouth—and a fleshiness that tells us these might be bodies, but fundamentally they refuse language and categorization. Their slipperiness connotes infinite fluid possibilities and any empathy toward them provides a moment of connection with the unknown and unknowable.
Pods (Celestial Dust)
Ceramic and glass
13 x 9 x 9”
8 x 6 x 6”
20 x 12 x 11”
2019
The sun, the center, the beginning, and the end
Ceramic and glass
15 x 11.5 x 3.5”
2018
Spinal Aloe Flame and Flaming Bud
Ceramic, wrought iron, wax candle, fire, and found hookah parts
51 x 12 x 12” and 50 x 28 x 18”
2022 and 2023
Crucible Fictions
Ceramic and bronze
Dimensions variable
2022
My work explores protection and the beauty found in nature’s fleeting moments. From spring mosses and emerging seeds to autumn colors and mist covered morning landscapes. Having hiked some of these locations for more than twenty-five years, I have witnessed both subtle and dramatic changes in the land over time.
Recently, I have been reexploring the Sam’s Point area within Minnewaska State Park, a uniquely fragile environment characterized by dwarf pitch pine barrens, deep ice caves, and remote gullies accessible only through guided docent tours. Rare lichens and other specialized plant species thrive in these cold, isolated areas of the Shawangunk Mountains.
Wildfires swept through the region in 2016, leaving lasting impacts on the landscape through both the fire itself and the subsequent remediation efforts. This body of work reflects themes of regeneration and resilience. The emergence of new growth after destruction as well as the vulnerability of ancient lichens that can be irreparably damaged by a single footstep.
Through torchworked borosilicate glass armor forms, I explore the tension between fragility and strength, creating objects that evoke both the beauty of the natural world and our desire to protect it.
Recently, I have been reexploring the Sam’s Point area within Minnewaska State Park, a uniquely fragile environment characterized by dwarf pitch pine barrens, deep ice caves, and remote gullies accessible only through guided docent tours. Rare lichens and other specialized plant species thrive in these cold, isolated areas of the Shawangunk Mountains.
Wildfires swept through the region in 2016, leaving lasting impacts on the landscape through both the fire itself and the subsequent remediation efforts. This body of work reflects themes of regeneration and resilience. The emergence of new growth after destruction as well as the vulnerability of ancient lichens that can be irreparably damaged by a single footstep.
Through torchworked borosilicate glass armor forms, I explore the tension between fragility and strength, creating objects that evoke both the beauty of the natural world and our desire to protect it.
After the fire
Torchwork borosilicate glass chainmail, driftwood and pine needles
58 x 12 x 5”
2026
Lichen along the trail
Torchwork borosilicate glass chainmail on rocks
14 x 14 x 7”
2026
Ember in the Gully
Torchwork borosilicate glass chainmail on rock
34 x 16 x 5”
2026
The Sky has Fallen
Torchworked borosilicate glass on charred driftwood
40 x 20 x 22”
2026
Red Foliage
Torchwork borosilicate glass chainmail, rocks and pine needles
48 x 34 x 7”
2026
Artifact of Collapse is a segment of a white ash tree killed by emerald ash borer (EAB). Half of the remnant wood was carbonized in a charcoal retort. This process reduces the wood of the tree to its sequestered carbon, making it archival. The form and grain of this ash tree are preserved along with the evidence of its demise: the winding galleries visible across the cambium layer.
Processing Collapse is a public art project about extinction made primarily for public libraries. This work began with marking the collapse of our regional ash trees due to the introduction of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). In just over a decade, 99% of the mature ash in our region died as a result of EAB infestation. Seen another way, 7% of our forest was lost in the blink of an eye. We want to acknowledge the magnitude of that loss as a relevant, historic event with lasting impacts on our lives and ecosystems. Noticing the impacts of non-native insects, fungal blights, and extraction on other tree species has inspired the expansion of our research. We strive to build relationship between the public and our changing forests in our last free commons.
Our work is wholly collaborative and non-hierarchical. We align as artists who notice beauty and fall into reverie through observation. Michael’s rural background, public art experience, and familiarity with the forest contrasts and coalesces with Ripley’s urban upbringing, years of working in libraries, and committed writing practice. Together, we are joyfully shaping a socially engaged project for diverse audiences. Our unconventional collaboration speaks to the relevance of this subject across demographic lines.
We are the researchers, designers, and fabricators of each Processing Collapse artwork. We have experimented with building, burning, carving, carbonizing, coppicing, and composting with fallen trees. We have amassed an extensive tool kit for working with salvaged wood. Facilities at our disposal include a woodworking studio, and metal fabrication workshop. Tools we have accumulated and fabricated include a portable sawmill, charcoal retort, wide range of power tools, hand tools (including carving tools, hand saws, and a range of carving axes), and a simple forge.
Processing Collapse is a public art project about extinction made primarily for public libraries. This work began with marking the collapse of our regional ash trees due to the introduction of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). In just over a decade, 99% of the mature ash in our region died as a result of EAB infestation. Seen another way, 7% of our forest was lost in the blink of an eye. We want to acknowledge the magnitude of that loss as a relevant, historic event with lasting impacts on our lives and ecosystems. Noticing the impacts of non-native insects, fungal blights, and extraction on other tree species has inspired the expansion of our research. We strive to build relationship between the public and our changing forests in our last free commons.
Our work is wholly collaborative and non-hierarchical. We align as artists who notice beauty and fall into reverie through observation. Michael’s rural background, public art experience, and familiarity with the forest contrasts and coalesces with Ripley’s urban upbringing, years of working in libraries, and committed writing practice. Together, we are joyfully shaping a socially engaged project for diverse audiences. Our unconventional collaboration speaks to the relevance of this subject across demographic lines.
We are the researchers, designers, and fabricators of each Processing Collapse artwork. We have experimented with building, burning, carving, carbonizing, coppicing, and composting with fallen trees. We have amassed an extensive tool kit for working with salvaged wood. Facilities at our disposal include a woodworking studio, and metal fabrication workshop. Tools we have accumulated and fabricated include a portable sawmill, charcoal retort, wide range of power tools, hand tools (including carving tools, hand saws, and a range of carving axes), and a simple forge.
Artifact of Collapse
Half-carbonized slab of white ash wood
23 x 15 x 4”
2026
Like many, I fell in love with the sunsets fading behind the rolling mountains of the Hudson Valley: The seductive beauty of the land. While hiking, I often recall the works of Frederick Edwin Church or Thomas Cole, only to be confronted by discarded trash. That’s a part of our Landscape too, one that’s conspicuous. What about the invisible traces we leave in our landscape? A slow violence is descending upon us: heat rising.
An AI data center has been proposed in East Fishkill, our neighbors. As the world rushes toward massive AI infrastructure, we must acknowledge the cost: these facilities require immense (compounded) amounts of electricity, water, and refrigerant. While it is technological “progress,” this buildout acts as a catalyst for global warming. In the last decade alone, I have witnessed the local consequences of a changing climate: summer droughts triggering forest fires in the Hudson Highlands, tornadoes tearing through our forests between Beacon and Wappingers, flash floods cutting through our yards, the Hudson River swelling to submerge streets and lowland parks, and scorching, silent heat waves that drive people and even the wildlife into hiding- dead silent heat.
My landscape paintings capture these symptoms of climate change—a future we are often selectively unconscious of: a landscape pushed past the tipping point. The air that gives us life is increasingly saturated with greenhouse gases; our storms are becoming more violent; and the land itself is suffering from desertification, where degraded soil leads to water scarcity, biodiversity collapse, and the desperation of climate-driven migration.
We are fortunate to live in a relatively forgiving region, but we are not immune. Desertification already threatens the American Southwest, South America, large swaths of Africa, the Mediterranean, and parts of Asia. Just as fluorinated gases eventually permeate the global atmosphere to become everyone’s problem, we, too, must eventually reckon with the rising heat.
An AI data center has been proposed in East Fishkill, our neighbors. As the world rushes toward massive AI infrastructure, we must acknowledge the cost: these facilities require immense (compounded) amounts of electricity, water, and refrigerant. While it is technological “progress,” this buildout acts as a catalyst for global warming. In the last decade alone, I have witnessed the local consequences of a changing climate: summer droughts triggering forest fires in the Hudson Highlands, tornadoes tearing through our forests between Beacon and Wappingers, flash floods cutting through our yards, the Hudson River swelling to submerge streets and lowland parks, and scorching, silent heat waves that drive people and even the wildlife into hiding- dead silent heat.
My landscape paintings capture these symptoms of climate change—a future we are often selectively unconscious of: a landscape pushed past the tipping point. The air that gives us life is increasingly saturated with greenhouse gases; our storms are becoming more violent; and the land itself is suffering from desertification, where degraded soil leads to water scarcity, biodiversity collapse, and the desperation of climate-driven migration.
We are fortunate to live in a relatively forgiving region, but we are not immune. Desertification already threatens the American Southwest, South America, large swaths of Africa, the Mediterranean, and parts of Asia. Just as fluorinated gases eventually permeate the global atmosphere to become everyone’s problem, we, too, must eventually reckon with the rising heat.
Survival Camp with Water Collectors, Kale, and Oil Pipeline
Oil on canvas
41 x 30”
2019
Cliff Shelter No.1 with Storm Clouds
Charcoal on canvas panel
9 x 12”
2023
Cliff Dwellers with Aloe Vera Garden
Alcohol inks, India ink and acrylic on Yupo
9 x 10”
2024
Atmosphere Bubble and Ruins in a Dead Landscape
Oil on canvas
43 x 36”
2019
Tent with Campfire and Roasted Turnips on a Stormy Night
Oil on canvas
42 x 36”
2019
Camp Fire Torrential Downpour with Turnips
Oil on panel, with frame
8 x10”
2018
Safe Harbors' Ann Street Gallery exhibitions are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Cowles Charitable Trust, Dominican Sisters of Hope Ministry Fund, M&T Charitable Foundation, and individual donors.
