My love affair for the Impressionists has provided me with a rich philosophical setting for a better appreciation of the Environmental Art Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. It can be argued that the artistic philosophies of landscape painting by Monet and others influenced the idea of the “Earthworks in the Desert” art of Robert Simpson. His works and others of that genre, led to the creation of the urban art in public spaces of the 1980’s and helped to form public art commissions of today. With this new direction of art, artists like Cristo, began developing their ideas with the environment as art. Art and the green movement have become the ecological art phenomenon of today. The most celebrated ecological action was “performed” in 1982 at the “Documenta”, by Joseph Beuys, with his work “7000 Oaks”. The action of planting 7000 trees around Kassel, Germany as an Art Performance set center stage for the Earth, nature and climate as Eco Art to emerge as the socio-economic-politico wave of the future with worldwide consequences.
In a recent visit to Park City Utah my attention was brought back to this very important human moment in time. I was given the pleasure of experiencing “THE WAY OF THE RAIN” a Performance Art work by Sybille Swaggers Redford. This series of work which she started in 2010 encompassed paintings, music, dance, prose, film and textile art and enveloped me in nature as a butterfly is nestled in its cocoon. It made me realize again how much humanity needs to be here to protect, to nurture, to hold divine that which Earth has given all in nature to call home.
My first experience of Sybille Swaggers work was in Singapore in 2008 when I saw her large visually abstract work on canvas while visiting the Singapore Biennale and the International Musical Festival. I definitely will make a point of following this very important Eco artist. So very happy to be reintroduced to her work! So be introduced and Be Good to the Earth!!
