This series focuses on the holocaust of Nature we are witnessing, in particular species extinction, at a rate of 10,000-100,000 per year one thousand times the natural rate. Based on these statistics, biologist E.O. Wilson estimates that if current trends continue, half of Earth's animal and plant species will be extinct by the end of this century.
It is clear that the Western mind is divorced from Nature, the primary condition that has lead to the current ecological catastrophe. I feel that the only way back, indeed our own survival, depends on nothing less than a reenchantment with the Earth as a living reality. It is for this reason that I have chosen to depict non-human species in a traditionally religious form — the icon — which draws on my formal training in this discipline and practice of it for more than twenty years.
My aim in creating these works is threefold: to bring awareness to the magnitude of species loss, to evoke a deep sense of empathy and reverence for the magnificence and the suffering of the living world and to elevate nonhuman species to their rightful and equal place in the community of being. While the loss of biodiversity affects the long term survival of human beings, each life form has intrinsic value, not just its use to human beings. In the words of Thomas Aquinas:
Because the divine could not image itself forth in any one being, it created the great diversity of things so that what was lacking in one would be supplied by the others and the whole universe together would participate in and manifest the divine more than any single being whatsoever.
These works merge three modes of inquiry that are essential to my life and work: art, science and spirituality, for the purpose of fostering a more integral, diverse and beautiful world.
In a desire to expand and enrich my forms of expression, in the late 1990’s I began training under a master iconographer from Russia in the liturgical art of Byzantine-Russian iconography. During my training, I not only
learned the medium of egg tempera, but was exposed to the ancient worldview and spirituality that inform the icon. Being a student of ecology, cosmology, and evolution however, I felt a great need to expand the canon of images to include Nature, not as a mere backdrop to the human-divine drama, but as the central focus.
It was out of this practice and deep concern for the fragility of the Earth and threats to biodiversity that I began creating icons of threatened and endangered species. The works in this series are executed in the liturgical iconographic method that originated in monasteries of 14th-16th century Russia the ancient “floating” technique of egg tempera, using all-natural materials: red bole clay, 22k gold leaf, wood panel, gesso prepared with marble dust and chalk, pigments made from ochres and ground up semi-precious stones, and linseed oil (“olifa”) for sealant. The method entails many layers and stages, progressing from darker, coarse pigments to lighter, brighter and more refined ones. Each stage has a precise symbolic meaning and each piece takes from three to six weeks to complete.
To extend the impact of my work, 50% of the proceeds from the sale of my originals benefit numerous conservation organizations working to preserve and protect biodiversity including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Half Earth Project, the Orangutan Project, Pangolin Crisis and Save the Manatee Club.
Angela Manno
Award-winning artist Angela Manno is a graduate of Bard College and studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute, Parsons School of Design and l’Ecole des Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Lacoste, France. She trained with master iconographer, Vladislav Andrejev in the ancient liturgical art of Byzantine-Russian iconography.
A three-time grant recipient from the Xerox Corporation, Manno’s art has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions including the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and other museums around the world. Her works reside in many private collections throughout the Americas, the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia and in distinguished public collections including NASA and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum.
Manno’s major solo exhibition, Conscious Evolution: The World At One, toured internationally and was seen by more than a quarter of a million people. With the support of private and corporate sponsors—including actor Tom Hanks, AXA Space and Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia the artwork featured….
featured in the exhibition became part of the permanent fine art collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in 2000.
In 1988, Manno was commissioned by NASA to commemorate the U.S. return to space flight with the launch of Discovery, the first after the Challenger accident. She is the only female visual artist selected for this honor. Other artists to capture the novelty of space travel for the space agency include Norman Rockwell, Robert Rauschenberg and James Wyeth. Her artwork for this assignment has toured throughout the United States and is part of the permanent NASA space art collection at the Kennedy Space Center.
In May 2022, Manno was commissioned by the Vatican Dicastery on Integral Human Development to create an audio visual program to open Laudato Si’ Week 2022, the seven year anniversary of Pope Francis’ ground breaking encyclical. The program, Responding to the Cry of the Earth, featured images from her series Contemporary Icons of Endangered Species and appeared on computer screens around the world as part of the global event, No More Biodiversity Collapse: Rebalancing Social Systems with Nature.
In the spring of 2023 Manno’s series of Icons of Threatened and Endangered Species was featured at Yale University and Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. This same series is slated for a number of solo and group exhibitions in 2024 including the University of Vermont. She is also working with Inner Traditions Publishing in Rochester, Vermont to bring her work to publication.
Manno’s artwork has been noted in numerous publications, including Hyperallergic, National Wildlife Magazine, The National Catholic Reporter, The Progressive, Sojourners, ART News, Treehugger, Smithsonian Magazine and a nine-page spread in The Artful Mind, the premier art magazine of the Berkshires. Her plein air landscapes are featured in the French documentary film Voyage au Pays des Lavandes (Journey to Lavender Country). Her art is also featured in two coffee table books, Visions of Space and In the Stream of Stars: The Soviet American Space Art Book and on the cover of the newly published volume Animal Dignity edited by bioethicist Melanie Challenger.
Angela Manno lives and works in New York City.
www.angelamanno.com
@angelamannofineart amanno@angelamanno.com
“Angela Manno uses the format of the Byzantine icon to memorialize the species endangered by the next great extinction. The religious metaphor allows her to turn the focus away from a purely human centered attitude, reminding us our sacred trust involves the flourishing of all life on earth.”
— Eleanor Heartney, Art critic and curator
“In her remarkable animal portraits, Angela Manno has found a way to combine exactitude with meaning in the faces of her subjects, no less than if they were in Nature’s studio looking out to the friendly observer.”
— Edward O. Wilson, conservation biologist, author of Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life
“These magnificent images help us look at what we're doing to the world in a new frame. Which is exactly what we need art to be doing right now.”
Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar, Middlebury College, author of The End of Nature
Apis,TheHoneyBee
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheFloridaPanther
2020
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
MexicanBlue-cappedHummingbird 2020
TheLoggerheadSeaTurtle 2019
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheChamberedNautilus 2020
TheSumatranOrangutan 2019
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheHorseshoeCrab 2019
9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood
TheAndeanFlamingo 2019
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Pangolin 2021
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheBlueIguana 2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood
9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheWestIndianManatee
2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheAndeanMarsupialFrog 2019
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
2019
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheFirefly 2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheScarlettHoneycreeper 2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheGiantKelp 2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
TheEmperorPenguin 2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
2023
ThresherShark
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
FreshwaterMussels
2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood
9 x 7 x 1 inches
2023
GunnisonSageGrouse
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
GopherTortoise 2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
NineSpottedLadybug
2022
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
BlueJadeVine
2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood
9 x 7 x 1 inches
Diatom 2023
Egg tempera and gold leaf on wood 9 x 7 x 1 inches
2024 (forthcoming) University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
2023 Sacred Biodiversity: Icons of Threatened and Endangered Species, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2023 Saving Beauty: The Contemporary Icons of Threatened and Endangered Species of Angela Manno, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY
2016-2017 May You Walk in Beauty: The Contemplative Landscapes of Angela Manno, Pendle Hill, Wallingford, PA
2014 - 2015 The Evolutionary Art of Angela Manno One Spirit Learning Alliance, New York, NY
2003 Les paysages d’âme d’Angela Manno–The Soul Scapes of Angela Manno, Bastide Le Mourre, Oppède-le-Vieux, France
1998 The Art of Transfiguration, MLT Gallery, Litchfield CT
1995 A Sense of Place, Center for the Arts, Crested Butte, Colorado
1985 - 1988 Conscious Evolution: The World At One, International Touring Museum Exhibition. United Nations Pavilion, Vancouver; BC; Museo Technologico, Mexico City; and museums and galleries throughout the U.S.
2024 (forthcoming) Biophelia in Excelsis, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, New Haven, CT
2023 (ongoing) One World Connected, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
2022 Mayday! Eaarth, Ceres Gallery, New York, NY
2021 Earth on the Edge, Ceres Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Endangered Earth, Ceres Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, D.C.
2014 82nd Annual Juried Exhibition of the Hudson Valley Art Association, Salmagundi Club, New York, NY
2013 High Art: A Decade of Collecting, National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
2010-2011 Digital 2010: PLANET EARTH, New York Hall of Science Museum, NY, NY
2010 Out of this World: Art of the Space Age – Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, D.C. Virtual Exhibition
2009 Columbia County Council on the Arts: “The Artist and The Elemental Landscape,” Hudson, NY
2008 36th Annual Pastel Society of America Exhibition, National Arts Club, New York, NY
2007 35th Annual Pastel Society of America Exhibition, National Arts Club, New York, NY
2006 34th Annual Pastel Society of America Exhibition, National Arts Club, New York, NY
2004-2006 Generous Friends, Building an Art Collection For the National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
2004 Arts for the Parks, National Academy of the Arts, Jackson Hole, WY
2002-2004 Lucille Lucas Gallery, Crested Butte, CO
2002 l’Exposition de Peinture Salon d’Eté, Office de Tourisme, Sault, France
2001 l’Exposition de Peinture Salon d’Eté, Office de Tourisme, Sault, France
2001 Une Soirée Provençale, Weatherburn Gallery, Naples, FL
2001 Dolan Arts Center, Locust Valley, Long Island, NY
2000 Messages from Earth, Aosta, Italy & Huntsville, AL
1998 Women Artists of the NASA Art Program, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
1991 Art of the Cosmic Age, Smithsonian Institution, National Air & Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
1989 The Art of STS-26, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
1989-1994 Art of the Cosmos, Traveling Exhibition - Hayden Planetarium, Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, CT, Alabama Rocket and Space Center, Arts and Science Center, Statesville, NC, Bergen Museum, NJ, Maryland Science Center, Baltimore
1989 Star ways to the Heavens, International Space Art Exhibition, Pavilion of Achievement Cultural Center, Moscow, USSR
Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., Permanent Fine Art Collection – 12 piece mixed media series, Conscious Evolution: The World At One donated by Tom Hanks, AXA Space, The Whizin Foundation, Xerox Foundation, Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, Ned and Jessica Dansen, and dozens of individual sponsors.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Kennedy Space Center, Florida – Permanent Exhibition
Lynn Warren, Underwater Icon: An Artistic Tribute to the Manatee, National Wildlife Magazine, July 4, 2023
Ray Hardman, Sacred Biodiversity: An Artist’s Unique Approach to Species Conservation, National Public Radio, All Things
Considered, April 20, 2023
Jim McDermott, This Earth Day, The artist painting beautiful i cons of God’s Endangered Species, America Magazine, April 21, 2023
Sarah Rose Sharp, The artist painting icons of Earth’s endangered species, Hyperallergic, March 2023
Andrea LaCouture, Creating a Sense of Reverence for Every Species, Sojourners Magazine, July 2022
Brian Roewe, When Biodiversity Flourishes, Human Life Flourishes,’ Vatican Officials Say, Earthbeat, a project of the National Catholic Reporter May 26, 2022
Picturing Earth, Inspiring Artists, and Shifting Perspectives, Smithsonian, National Air & Space Museum, February 2022
Mary Jo DiLeonardo, Artist paints endangered species as icons, Treehugger Jan 6, 2022
Barbara Fraser, Artist paints icons of endangered species to foster ecological conversion Earthbeat May 21, 2021
Jennifer Lavasseur, Through Astronaut Eyes, Purdue University Press, June 30, 2020, pp 178-179
Howie Kahn, The Easel Has Landed, ART news, January 2005
Une Américaine en Luberon pour trouver de la lumière, La Provence, Marseille, France, June 25, 2003
Sandy Fails, Angela Manno: Homage to a Fragile Planet, The San Luis Valley Magazine, 2002
Debra Christensen, Angela Manno: Connection to the Land Through Landscape Painting Pastel Journal, May/June 2002
Clare Ellis, One Small Step for Manno, New Age Magazine, March/April, 1999
Des Peintres Américains Conquis par la Lavande, La Provence, Marseille, France. July 30, 1997
Andrei Sokolov, Ron Miller and Vitaly Myagkov. Edited by William K Hartman. In the Stream of Stars: The Soviet-American. New York, Workman Publishing, 1990
David Hardy, Visions of Space. London, Dragon’s World Press, 1989
Todd Halvorson, Artistic Discovery: NASA Should Send Artists Into Space, Florida Today, September 30, 1989
Emily J. Smith, The Palm Beach Post, NASA Relinquishes Secrets, Puts Artists Into Launch Picture, Palm Beach, FL. 9/29, 1988
Francisco José Bernal, Pintura Esotérica; lo Divino y lo Bellamente Humano, El Heraldo, Mexico City, Mexico. October 25, 1987
Malcolm Preston, A Sense of Holiness, A Sense of Oneness, Newsday, Melville, NY. July 8, 1985
2004 Award for Excellence, The National Park Academy of the Arts
2000 Thematic Award, College of Art and Design, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
The Xerox Foundation, 1999 – Smithsonian Museum Acquisition Sponsor
The Xerox Corporation, Spring and Fall, 1987 – Traveling Exhibition Grant
NPR- All Things Considered, Sacred Biodiversity: An artist’s unique approach to species conservation, April 20, 2023
Living Hero: Conversations with Living Luminaries and Mavericks, podcast. Solastalgia and the Creative Response, with Angela Manno, Glenn Albrecht and Suzi Gablik, March 7, 2013
Love for Nature and the Integrity of the Spiritual, Human and Natural World, LadyBug Live internet radio, May 2010
Voyage aux Pays des Lavandes, French documentary film, Jean-Jacques Dubois, 2000
Angela Manno, Interview: The Power of Intuition, Manhattan Cable, 2000
Sights and Sounds of Space, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1989
Interview with Angela Manno, French CBC Radio, Vancouver, Canada, 1986
Angela Manno at the South Huntington Library, WCWP Radio, Greenvale, NY, Oct 10, 1985
Come Have Breakfast, Meditations on God and the Earth, Elizabeth Johnson, Feb 24, 2024. Cover illustration.
Animal Dignity, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. ed. Melanie Challenger. Cover illustration.
Jonah: A Prophecy at the Millennium, Albert LaChance, Dorrance Publications, 1998. Cover illustration.
Doors of Understanding: Conversations in Global Spirituality in honor of Ewert Cousins, Franciscan Press, 1997. ed. Steve Chase. Cover illustration.
The Story of the Earth and Us, Albert Gore, Jr., Magical Blend Magazine, February 1994
Creation Spirituality, Volume 1 #5, “Communities”, November 1, 1985
The Soul of the Moment, The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. March 16, 2021
Contemplating Beauty: The Universe as Icon, Chrysalis, The Journal of the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World. Volume 17, 2020 10-16, reprinted in Teilhard Perspectives, Winter 2021
Venerating the Sacred: Art as Cultural Therapy, Kosmos Journal, Autumn 2020
Angela Manno Icons of Threatened and Endangered Species, Rewilding Earth, Feb 15, 2020
Practical Mysticism: Contemplation, Creativity and the Ecozoic Age, The Ecozoic Reader, 2008. 37–40
Techniques of Resist Painting, The Artist's Magazine, February, 1986. 63–67
Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue, March 16, 2023
Art for Earth’s Sake, Ross Creek Center for the Arts, Nova Scotia, September 2022
Artists Talk on Art, 82 Virtual Open Studio, November 2021
The Art of Evolution, Findhorn Foundation, March 7, 2021
Voices of the Great Work American Teilhard Association, Annual Meeting, June 2020
Painting Color & Light in Pastel, Hunter College, New York, March-April 2015
Color & Light in Pastel, Friends Academy Visiting Artist, Locust Valley, NY April 2015
Picturing the Ecological Age, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY March 31, 2014
WGDR Goddard Community Radio, Goddard, VT, Angela Manno: Art & Activism, March 2, 2013
Angela Manno, Interview: Art & Spirituality II, PCTV, Pleasantville, NY June 2012
Picturing the Ecological Age, One Spirit Learning Alliance, New York, Jan 10, 2014
Painting Color & Light, New York Open Center, New York, NY 2012-2013
Teilhard’s Legacy Conference, Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, PA, November, 2006
Couleur et Lumière en Provence®/ Color & Light in Provence - 5 Day Intensive workshop, Sault-en-Provence, France July, 2005
Sacred Sources of Creativity with Ewert Cousins, New York Open Center, New York, NY April 1997
Honors Colloquium, University of North Dakota, September 1988
Artist Speaker Series, Daytona Beach Community College, December 1988
Techniques of Resist Painting, Parsons School of Design, Summer Session, 1985
Techniques of Resist Painting, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, May 1985
Pastel Society of America, Gramercy Park, New York, NY
American Teilhard Association, New York, NY.
Artists for Conservation, B.C., Canada
B.A. French & English, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, New York, 1975
Sarah Lawrence College, l’Ecole des Arts, Lacoste, France, 1972
School of Batik Painting, New York & Bombay, 1975-78
San Francisco Art Institute, Graduate studies in film, film animation, printmaking, 1976-1977
Parsons School of Design, Fiber Art 1982
Prosopon School of Iconology, Vladislav Andrejev, 1994-1998