CRISTI RINKLIN: The Weight of Ghosts
October 4 - December 31, 2019
Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present CRISTI RINKLIN: The Weight of Ghosts. The exhibition will run from October 4 – November 30, 2019 with an artist reception on Friday, October 4th from 5:30 – 8:00 PM.
In the wake of decades of urban expansion, forest fragmentation, strip mining, and fracking, we are just beginning to understand and feel the effects of these practices on the planet. The Weight of Ghosts is an investigation of this man-made crisis and a continuation of Rinklin’s long-time fascination with fractured, false geology. Initially intrigued by the blasted rock formations lining her daily commute, Rinklin began a multi-year investigation of landscapes which have been directly and indirectly shaped by man in dramatic ways. Using drone technology, researched images and by collaborating with a local environmental organization, Rinklin developed the two series of paintings on view.
In this exhibition, we see two categories of altered landscapes: Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining (MTR Series) and Global Warming induced methane implosions (Harbinger Series). Though both phenomena are solastalgia-inducing results of human intervention, they are manifestations of both direct and indirect methods of environmental destruction.
MTR is a practice prevalent in the Appalachian region of the United States where mountains are systematically decapitated in order to extract coal deposits. In Summer 2017, Rinklin travelled to West Virginia to connect with a regional environmental group and document some of these sites. Alongside the MTR paintings is a new series of works called Harbingers, based on images of methane implosions in Siberia. These craters form as a result of Global Warming, creating massive, abrupt voids in the earth. Like sinkholes and erosion, these events become harbingers of the extreme changes in the environment that we now face. While the MTRs depict an act of radical, conscious devastation, the Harbingers show a tipping point of consistent, continual decay. Though born out of different man-made methods of devastation, both acts show themselves as lasting scars on the landscape.
Memory – how it operates on both an individual and collective level – has been a consistent theme for Rinklin throughout her career. Her latest paintings continue to question how we understand our surroundings and, ultimately, how we construct meaning through a fluid dynamic between empirical observation and an imperfect, often biased sense of a remembered past. The subjects Rinklin addresses are teasingly familiar and specific, yet also are generalized.
CRISTI RINKLIN received her MFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1999, and her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1989. She has exhibited her work in galleries and museums throughout the United States, as well as venues in Rome, Florence, and Amsterdam. Rinklin is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Berkshire Taconic Artist’s Resource Trust and the Jerome Foundation Fellowship and has been a Visiting Artist/Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. This is Rinklin’s second solo exhibition with Steven Zevitas Gallery.
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