Opening Reception:
Friday June 14, 2024
5:30-8pm
Exhibit Dates:
June 14-July 14, 2024
About the Exhibit:
Step into a realm where the boundaries between art and nature blur, where every piece tells a story of interconnectedness and symbiosis. In this new collection of cyanotypes, monoprints, anc collages exploring trans-species communication and collaboration, artist Sadie Francis seeks to foster a dialogue between herself and the natural world, treating the botanicals as co-creators rather than passive subjects.
In cyanotypes, or sunprints, plants are imprinted on cloth or paper by the same sun that sustained them. Inspired by the urban wilds surrounding her home, each piece is a meditation on the intersection between wildness and the human world. In recontextualizing the forms of wild and cultivated plants alike, casting them in sky blue, Francis invites us to rediscover the delicate complexity of such a large part of the planet that most often is overlooked or ignored.
Through Francis' lens, we rediscover the subtle melodies of nature, the cyclical beauty of the curve of the vine, the bloom of the flower, all in profile, hopefully guiding us towards the larger aim of reconnecting us with the world from which we've strayed.
Artist Biography: Sadie Francis
Sadie Francis is a multimedia artist, activist, and creative biophilic consultant based in the Wissahickon Watershed on the ancestral lands of the Lenape people – or what is now known as Philadelphia, PA. Her work mostly focuses on the exploration of ecofeminist themes, natural cycles, and eco-anxiety and grief. Her inspiration is sourced from her awe, deep respect, and gratitude for the seemingly unlimited healing and bio remedial powers of the natural realm, which currently is being stretched to the brink. Over the last few years, Francis’s work has primarily focused around found and foraged both wild and cultivated botanical specimens, insects, and animal remains, and she uses to different media, including epoxy resin and cyanotype, to re-contextualize these specimens, enabling a “re-seeing” of their ephemeral and often underrepresented forms.
She has studied photography under Vik Muniz, Barbara Ess, and An-My Le. She holds a MPA of Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University, where she studied climatology, hydrology, environmental chemistry, and environmental ethics; disciplines which continue to inform her artistic work. For several years, she served on the board of bioPhilly, an organization that seeks to raise the awareness of biophilic urbanism, a paradigm that marries robust scientific evidence about public health urban stressors with nature-based solutions. She has completed professional science communication and collaborative management work for two UN Consultancies, the US Department of Energy, and American Forests. Her work has been featured in several galleries and arboreta, including InLiquid Art Gallery, Goggleworks Art Center, Morris Arboretum, and Woodmere Museum.