Material Stratification (painting in progress), 2025. Watercolor with pigments made from local soil, plants, and construction materials
I am pleased to be part of the exhibition We Are All Compost at Big Ramp Gallery in Philadelphia, curated by William Schwaller and featuring Viola Bordon, Bobby Haskell, Narenda Haynes, Cindy Stockon Moore, and Nichole Van Beek. The exhibition is comprised of decomposing compositions of entanglement with the more-than-human world, bringing together a diverse body of work by artists seeking symbiopoeisis with the environment, making with its critters and vibrant matter. Rooted in the materiality of the world around them, the artists embark on collaborations and entanglements with bacteria, composting insects, fungi, plants, soil, and stone in the composition of sculpture, painting, and video.
For this show I created an ephemeral wall painting entitled Material Stratification, inspired the natural and human history of Big Ramp’s surrounding neighborhoods of Kensington and Port Richmond. I gathered materials in the area and conducted research on land and water use. Pigment made from clay soil gathered in an open lot on Frankford Avenue depicts the local waterways that flowed freely into the Delaware River prior to industrialization. Lake pigment made with mugwort growing along Richmond Street depicts the riverfront geography of the 1600s, when the land was primarily stewarded by the Lenape and Europeans were just arriving (bringing mugwort—a plant considered to be an invasive species that has numerous medicinal uses—with them). Pigment made from crushed bricks gathered in a lot on Westmoreland Street depicts the industrial shoreline, including docks, railroad tracks, and the Aramingo Canal, a channel built in the bed of Gunner’s Run stream that quickly became so polluted that it had to be covered and converted into a combined sewer. Pigment from organic soil gathered along the Port Richmond trail near Pulaski Park depicts the trails and parks being developed by the city and Riverfront North Partnership, which aim to restore riverfront ecology and reconnect city residents with the Delaware.
We Are All Compost runs through April 19, 2025; gallery hours are Saturdays 2-4pm.