From Mountains To Sea

Š Art.Science.Gallery. 2015 cover design + layout by J. Thompson all images are Š by the artists and are used here by permission

FROM MOUNTAINS TO SEA a exhibition about the science and impacts of climate change Art.Science.Gallery.

Austin, TX July 25th - August 29th, 2015

RADIATIVE FORCING Cooling and heating forces affect how much solar radiation is reflected back into space.

Works by Ele Willoughby and Adam Fung explore both positive forcing (more incoming energy) which warms the atmosphere, and negative forcing (more outgoing energy) which cools it.

Carbon dioxide, probably the most well known of the heat-trapping “greenhouse gases”, makes up just 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere yet has potent radiative force.

Willoughby’s print and the short film by the American Museum of Natural History about Charles David Keeling (a notable scientist who pieced together patterns of atmospheric CO 2 concentration) provide insight into both natural and anthropogenic variation in the concentration of this gas.

Volcanic eruptions, on the other hand, release sulfur-based aerosols and volcanic ash into the atmosphere, increasing the Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, cooling the climate by back-scattering solar radiation. The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1980, for example, released 520 million tons of ash into the atmosphere.

Radiative Forcing Components 2.5

Albedo

Linear contrails

Cloud albedo effect

Direct effect

Black carbon on snow

Stratospheric water vapour

Ozone -1.5

"Radiative-forcings" by Leland McInnes at the English language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Net Anthropogenic Component

-1

Greenhouse Gases

Solar irradiance

-0.5

Land use

0

N20

Aerosols

Stratospheric

0.5

CH4

1

Tropospheric

Halocarbons

1.5

CO2

Radiative forcing (W/m2)

2

ELE WILLOUGHBY Toronto, Ontario

Charles David Keeling & the Keeling Curve linoleum cut print on japanese kozo paper 30.5 x 30.5 cm 2015

This is a portrait of American geochemist Charles David Keeling (1928-2005) whose decades long observations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in air samples at the Mauna Loa Observatory were some of the first direct data to show the human contribution to the greenhouse effect and global warming. The ‘Keeling Curve,’ shown in copper and red, shows both the seasonal variations (the wiggles) and the strong upward trend with time as CO2, a known greenhouse gas (which traps solar radiation), builds up in the atmosphere.

ELE WILLOUGHBY Toronto, Ontario Ele Willoughby is a marine geophysicist and printmaker — or, perhaps, vice versa. Since earning her PhD in physics in 2003, she has worked as a research scientist in academia and government while simultaneously building her printmaking portfolio. She has pursued courses in printmaking at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Open Studio and studied moku hanga Japanese wood block printing. She makes prints about the history of science, natural history, and interactive art, incorporating color-changing or electrically conductive inks and electronics, which straddle the art/science divide.

ADAM FUNG Fort Worth, TX

Not Yet Titled oil and acrylic on linen 167 x 111 cm 2011-2015

This multi-layered painting is based around a formative event in my life. One of my earliest memories is of Mt. St. Helens erupting in Washington State. This awareness of the natural world at a very young age shaped me and defined me as a person and artist. The image of the mountain is one I have revisited often and is meant as a warning and reminder to viewers that nature, despite it's romantic, geologic scale, and sublime qualities, can change before our eyes.

ADAM FUNG Fort Worth, TX

Vanishing Point (Eruption) acrylic and watercolor on paper 53 x 40 cm 2010

This painting is part of a larger series titled Disruptions and connects climate change, human time, manifest destiny, and romantic traditions of landscape to a volatile (volcanic) site. These iconic mountains have a certain gravity, people gaze upon them, seek to summit, study their activity, so here I've created a "vanishing point" that erupts Mount Rainier. This projected vantage point can be seen as the many trajectories of our lives as well as the earth, shifting from moment to moment.

ADAM FUNG Fort Worth, TX Adam Fung is an artist who is often inspired by on-site research and experiences. His work has dealt with climate change, landscape, and most recently works that act as investigations into the make-up of the universe and how painting can be mobilized to describe such vast subject matter. Fung's work has taken him around the globe; to Antarctica, Australia, Austria, Italy, Japan, and Thailand. Fung will be an artist in residence on the Arctic Circle's summer solstice expedition in June 2016.

SNOW & ICE MELT Aerosols can also come from anthropogenic activity, such as black carbon, and organic carbon, which are produced from burning fossil fuels. These particulates can darken snow and ice, or lower surface albedo (reflectivity), causing them to absorb more of the sun’s energy. This sets up a positive feedback loop in which melting ice and snow expose low-albedo surfaces underneath, further speeding ice and snow melt. Adrián Aguilera’s mountain collages re-contextualize snow-capped mountains and glaciers, and help to visualize high- vs. low-albedo surfaces.

Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have recently constructed climate models to examine the impacts of this snow-darkening phenomenon on Northern Hemisphere snowpacks.

“As we add more of these aerosols to the mix,” said research scientist Teppei Yasunari at NASA, “ we are potentially increasing our overall impact on Earth’s climate.”

To watch a video featuring Yasunari’s research please visit bit.ly/snowdarkening.

Mountains 1, Adriรกn Aguilera. Collage on bristol paper.

2014.

ADRIĂ N AGUILERA Austin, TX

Mountains 1 Mountains 2 Mountains 3 collage on bristol paper 27.9 x 35.6 cm (each) 2014

The artist collages and paper-based installations by assembling recurrent shapes, textures and backgrounds into compositions that create landscapes, natural scenes, viewpoints and other situations.

He selectively removes the discarded images from their original context, in a sense of disarranging various identities.

ADRIÁN AGUILERA Austin, TX Adrián Aguilera recevied his BFA from the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in 2004.

He creates analogue collage and paper-based installation artworks. By using an ever-growing archive of found paper media to create artworks, Aguilera works on the closely related subjects of nature and accumulation. In recent years, he has exhibited in San Pedro Garza García as part of his art residency at PARAC 14-15. Adrián Aguilera currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.

SEA LEVEL & ACIDIFICATION Climate change is already having effects on sea level rise across the globe; as glaciers recede and ice caps melt, they are releasing massive amounts of freshwater into the oceans, and ocean water thermally expands as it warms. In fact, global average sea level has already risen 8 inches since 1880, and is expected to rise another 6-16 inches by 2050, and 14-48 inches by 2100 depending on the actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Melissa H. Gillespie’s Solar Seas was printed with solar-reactive dyes under a discarded, petroleum-based beach ball, and invokes a sense of an almost-melting planet.

Ocean acidification is also a major impact of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. CO 2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which in high enough concentrations, can dissolve the carbonate structures of corals and other microscopic marine life at the base of marine food webs.

Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14, representing an increase of almost 30% in H+ ion concentration in the world's oceans.

Ironically, the solar dye that represents the oceans Solar Seas, is ammonia-based rather than acidic.

Estimated change in sea water pH caused by human created CO2 between the 1700s and the 1990s, from the Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) and the World Ocean Atlas.

MELISSA H. GILLESPIE Fort Worth, Texas

Solar Seas solar print using photosensitive dye and found beach ball on canson paper 76 x 57 cm 2015

Global warming being an observable global climate change along with shrinking glaciers, melting sea ice, sea level rise, shifting plant and animal ranges, extreme weather conditions, made me think of how this tiny beach ball threatened the globe was unsettling. Using the ball as a template and creating a print with a dye that is developed by the sun, brought about a piece that captured how I could make a small statement about a big problem.

MELISSA H. GILLESPIE Fort Worth, TX Melissa H. Gillespie received her BFA in Art from the University of Texas at Arlington focusing on printmaking and papermaking. For the past decade, her work has shifted to painting in acrylics for their speed in drying that satisfies her desire for painting fast, emotional works based on news media images that invoke social and political angst.

DEEP OCEANS The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a major current in the Atlantic Ocean, characterized by a northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic, and a southward flow of colder water in the deep Atlantic. The AMOC is an important component of the Earth’s climate system.

Read “A DEEP, DISTENDING HEAT” at www.benbray.com/blog.

The deep ocean is a critical factor in global climate change. But like the Arctic, it is difficult and expensive to explore. It remains unclear - a dark, vast unknown - hundreds of meters below the depth at which sunlight penetrates.

“AMOC - Profound Heat” illuminates the deep ocean - the profound space - through the medium of ocean temperature.

Longitudinally-averaged temperatures at two depths in the Atlantic Ocean during global warming “hiatus” periods are projected through glass sculpture describing the path of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

Working in the context of Heat Diffusion in the Atlantic Ocean, the artist chose glass for its singular ability to flow, revealing and clarifying the fluid environment of the seas.

Progress photos of Profound Heat I & II, provided by W. Benjamin Bray. 2015.

W. Benjamin Bray Somerville, MA

Profound Heat 1 Profound Heat 2 ultra-chrome k3 ink on hahnemuhle photo rag 308 76 x 76 cm 2015

The DEEP OCEAN is a critical factor in climate change, and is difficult to explore. It remains unclear – a dark, vast unknown – far below the depth to which sunlight can penetrate.

AMOC - Profound Heat illuminates the deep ocean - the profound space - through ocean temperature. Zonal-average temperatures at two depths in the Atlantic Ocean during global warming "hiatus" periods are projected through glass sculpture describing the path of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

W. BENJAMIN BRAY Somerville, MA W. Benjamin Bray is a media artist working in earth science and technology. His works range from site- specific installations in the Arctic to experimental renderings of climate change occurring in the Southwest. He has exhibited works in Massachusetts, New York, and Wisconsin, and completed residencies in Svalbard and the United States. Bray is the recipient of artist grants from MIT, Vermont Studio Center, Corning Museum of Glass, and a research grant from the National Science Foundation.

WEATHER EXTREMES Works by Regina Allen and Sharon Wegner-Larsen explore the effects of climate change on weather patterns, particularly on extreme weather events, which are predicted to become more frequent and severe with increasing global average temperatures.

Increasing sea surface temperatures, for example, provide greater energy to fuel storms that begin at sea. While climate models are always improving, it can still be controversial to link specific weather events to climate change. Eric Pooley, senior vice president at Environmental Defense Fund, famously quipped about Hurricane Sandy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther.

Now we have weather on steroids.”

To put this into more scientific language, The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), notes that “a changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events.”

Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. Because of its scientific and intergovernmental nature, the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers. To read the IPCC’s most recent Synthesis report visit www.ipcc.ch

REGINA ALLEN Austin, TX

Typhoon 2 mixed media on paper 76 x 55 cm 2015

Typhoon 2 is about the powerful storms that are a result of climate change. Aerial photographs of typhoon destruction from Asia inspired the work. Topographical lines delineate mountainous regions, creating amoeba-like shapes suggesting the dangers of life in the aftermath of destruction. Targets and cross-hairs represent the danger. The funnel shape is a rendering of a worm hole, symbolizing our need to make a great leap, scientifically and emotionally. It also acts as a warning siren.

REGINA ALLEN Austin, TX

Super Typhoon 2 mixed media on paper 38 x 55 cm 2015

This work is about the increasingly powerful storms that are a result of climate change.

Aerial photographs of typhoon destruction from Asia inspired the work. Targets and storm tracking imagery represent the threat of these forces. The swirl of gold suggests the churning rotation of the storm. The layers of collage and paper obscure the imagery, much as some politicians try to obscure the truth of climate change.

REGINA ALLEN Austin, TX Regina Allen grew up in Nashville, TN. She earned an MFA in painting from Northwestern University, and a BFA in Painting and a BA in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. Regina has shown her work at galleries in Nashville, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Austin. She teaches at Central Texas College in Killeen, and she lives and works in Austin with her husband, writer Neal Pollack, and their son.

SHARON WEGNER-LARSEN Sioux Falls, SD

Fig. 3 watercolor and gouache on watercolor paper 19 x 19 cm 2015

While the artist frequently uses meteorological symbols and ammonites in her body of work, "Fig. 3" is the first time she has combined this imagery to more directly deal with climate change and extreme weather events. Ammonites are a symbol the artist uses to suggest deep time but are also simply pleasing shell shapes to those who don't recognize them. The artist often names her paintings as numbered figures, as if from a science book, and viewers may come to differing conclusions as to what the figure/artwork is describing.

SHARON WEGNER-LARSEN Sioux Falls, SD Sharon Wegner-Larsen is an artist and designer who specializes in painting and illustration. She works in both traditional and digital media. A lifelong interest in natural history and love of nature has led her to an ongoing exploration of ways to open up an active dialogue between the arts and sciences.

She is especially drawn to the Earth Sciences and the concept of deep time. She lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, surrounded by field, prairie, and wide open sky.

BIOLOGICAL IMPACTS Works by Jenny Rock, Katie Ryan and Emily Bryant (as well as Calder Kamin’s MindFull on the adjacent wall) illustrate the effects climate change is having on species worldwide.

Geographical range shifts, habitat loss, phenology (timing of life events) changes, and temperature extremes are but a few of these effects, which often have overlapping and interconnected impacts on species.

The habitats most under threat include: high elevations where species may reach the upper limits of available remaining habitat; islands and coastal areas where storm surges and sea level rise are increasingly destructive forces; and high latitudes and polar regions where permafrost is melting (releasing the potent greenhouse gas methane), glaciers are receding, and sea ice is breaking up.

Conservation scientists all over the world are diligently working to understand these effects and help find mitigating solutions. On Saturday, August 8th, two local scientists Nichole Bennett and Stavana Strutz from the University of Texas at Austin - discussed their research on the impacts of climate change on butterfly population range shifts and on disease vector distributions in Texas.

EMILY BRYANT Rocky River, OH

I’m Vanishing: Kaputar Pink Slug upcycled plastic packaging, plant-based glue 35.6 x 20.3 cm 2015

The Kaputar Pink Slug is only found on Mount Kaputar, an extinct volcano in Australia. Growing up to 20 centimeters long, their striking pink coloration enables the slugs to blend in with eucalyptus leaves on the forest floor. Endemic only to the highest portions of Mount Kaputar, this endangered species is especially vulnerable to changes in temperature and precipitation.

Climate change is considered the biggest threat to the species due to the fragility and narrow range of its habitat.

EMILY BRYANT Rocky River, OH Emily Bryant holds degrees in Sustainability and Studio Art from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, OH. While completing her college education, Bryant began to explore how sustainability could be incorporated into art.

Using sustainable materials, such as invasive plant material and packaging waste, Bryant produces art with environmental messages and hopes to inspire others to explore and conserve the natural world.

KATE RYAN Austin, TX

Habitat acrylic paint on masonite 56.5 x 76.5 cm 2015

This painting examines the story of the Bermuda Petrel. Despite being thought extinct for over 300 years, a few Bermuda Petrel survived by nesting on remote rocky islets. In recent years, these islets have suffered terrific storms and rising seas, washing away nests and their chicks.

Rediscovered in 1951, humans have been working to save this “Lazarus species� from extinction by relocating chicks to islands safe from the effects of climate change.

KATIE RYAN Austin, TX Katie Ryan currently lives and works in Austin, Texas. Katie’s background is rooted in painting, drawing, exploring the outdoors, and education. Her work currently investigates the consequences of societal disconnect with nature. Her goal is to move the interest of the viewer through the powerful narratives that many wild creatures have to tell. She hopes that in giving these narratives a voice through art it will reengage curiosity and compassion for our natural world.

JENNY ROCK Dunedin, New Zealand

Off the Ends intaglio collagraph print 17 x 23 cm 2008

With global warming, the world’s ecosystems have been described as migrating toward the poles, such that when the ice disappears entirely the ecosystems at the poles will be “pushed right off the planet".

JENNY ROCK Dunedin, New Zealand Jenny Rock is a biologist who has spent 20 years researching temperature adaptation, molecular ecology and evolution. She is also an artist working in intaglio and relief printing.

She now lectures at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand in the Centre for Science Communication on aesthetics and paradigms in science, visual cognition, co-creative practice and art-science integration.

LOOKING FORWARD Works by Cathryn Rowe and Calder Kamin reflect hope that we can take both individual and political action on climate change. There is growing political momentum to acknowledge and solve climate change related problems. There are also thousands of scientists worldwide that are dedicating their lives to studying the effects of climate change and how to mitigate them, often without much reward or acknowledgement, and sometimes even despite harassment.

If you are interested in learning more about the effects of climate change and what you can do about it, we encourage you to explore resources provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; www.ipcc.ch), The Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org) or 350.org (according to 350.org, “the number 350 means climate safety: to preserve a livable planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 400 parts per million to below 350 ppm.�). These are but a few of the organizations working to address climate change issues using scientifically-based assessments and information.

CATHRYN ROWE Austin, TX

To express the sense of the senate that climate change is real and not a hoax (S. Amdt. 29 to S. Amdt. 2 to S. 1) intaglio collagraph print 17 x 23 cm 2008

A U.S. Senate vote in January 2015 suggested a softening of partisan politics with near unanimous agreement that climate change was real. The amendment was toothless, however, as Republicans prevented adding language indicating human involvement. In creating a visual system to express this vote—indicating age, race, gender, party, and seniority of senators—the artist wanted to find an orderly view of the intersection between these two powerful and intractable processes: climate change and politics.

CATHRYN ROWE Austin, TX Cathryn Rowe is an Austin-based interactive designer whose art and design works focus on revealing and organizing information. Her previous projects have investigated representations of people in National Geographic magazine, the process of photographic composition, and the use of color in H.G. Wells’ novels. The scientific method influences her process as she experiments and creates precise visual systems shaped by and adapted to her subjects’ particular characteristics.

CALDER KAMIN Austin, TX

Mind-Full custom plastic headphones 20.3 x 25.4 cm 2014-2015

Mind-Full’s mission is to educate audiences about human influence over nature and motivate more people to be thoughtful of animals. Featuring a collection of short audio chapters of my conversations with ecology experts, with Mind-Full the artist seeks to make a more knowledgeable and observant public that can relate to the natural world.

Interviews with Cody George, Head Horticulturist for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Alice Boyle, Assistant Professor of Biology at Kansas State University.

CALDER KAMIN Austin, TX Calder Kamin is drawn to the contradictory aspects of our relationships with animals and the environment. Her sculpture and public projects provide education about the ways humans impact biodiversity. Kamin earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and was the 2013-2014 Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s Art Truck Artist and the first Artist-in-Residence at The Beach Museum of Art. Her work was included in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art’s exhibition “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now”. She is a 2015 mentor for the Teen Artist + Mentor Program at The Contemporary Austin