HORTUS CONCLUSUS HORTUS CONCLUSUS
CHRISTEL DILLBOHNER
solo exhibition works on paper 9/18 - 10/30 2024
solo exhibition
Women have undoubtedly made their mark in the art world. Even though they were often overshadowed in the past, today women are aware of their immense contributions to art as we know it. Despite dealing with societal obstacles and alack of broader support, they fought for what was important to them.
Their goal is not to reach a percentage but to create a paradigm shift in how we view the ways that systemic biases and social structures have influenced what is defined as artistic excellence
Collections grow through a combination of intention and happenstance—but the fact is that collecting women artists is increasing and that will have an impact on the arts, creating an overall and overdue balance.
Hortus conclusus :
an enclosed garden shielded from the world of noise
During the year of sheltering – in – place the herb garden in front of our house has turned into a small refuge. Under Californians desert skies I have tended to the varied plants for years. Due to the late spring rains the whole garden sprung into an unusual vibrancy of lavender blue, fiery orange, soft pinks and saturated shades of green. The Passion fruit vine had spread out over the rickety fence and bloomed the whole summer offering nutrition for bees, a playground for butterflies, a hiding place for finches and wrens and hummingbirds. It had turned the front yard into a sheltered, magical place. In this Hortus Conclusus I have spent hours to observe the natural world. Here I read and write and contemplate on creative ideas.
This most intimate landscape also provided me with the plants for a new series of cyanotypes called “Hortus Conclusus”. When you study the blueprints closely you’ll find the shadowy imprints of large leaved nasturtiums, the basket like euphoria flowers, prickly thistles, the echiums flowery candles and the copper tips long spikes and ensiform leaves.
The cyanotype process is a photographic one that involves a light sensitive solution that I brush on sheets of heavy paper. Before the exposure to the ultraviolet beams of the sunlight I lay down a pre-selected group of plants and branches to capture their shadows. After exposure the paper has to be washed, dried and cured. Then I sift through the recorded image with pen and brush, and thus create divers horticultural prospects.
Christel Dillbohner Berkeley, CA 2021
Hortus Conclusus # 3 mixed media
42” x 31”
3200.00
Hortus Conclusus # 1 mixed media
42” x 31”
3200.00
Underwater Gardens # 3 mixed media 21” x 36”
Night Flowering # 1 mixed media 42” x 26”
Night Flowering # 2 mixed media 42” x 26”
Night Flowering # 2
X 42”
Field # 3
Littoral Forest
Oceans and lakes are bordered by littoral zones where submerged water plants photosynthesize, i.e., eat sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce biomass. These near shore aquatic ecosystems provide food and shelter for many animals and plants– yet they are also very sensitive to changes in water temperature.
One impressive and depressing example of how climate change may affect marine ecosystems are the kelp beds of Northern California. Until recently, extensive kelp forests rose up from the ocean floor over 150 feet high to the Pacific’s surface along much of the coastline. They provided a habitat for sea otters, fish, algae, snails, to name a few. Since 2008 kelp beds began to decline in many areas. The gradual temperature rise in near-shore waters and a wasting disease killing off the sunflower sea star are the main causes. In the kelp bed ecosystem the sunflower sea star had become the main predator of sea urchins, which feed on kelp. They chew through the kelp’s strong hold-fast; the unanchored plants rise to the surface and wash onto the shore. The long bulbous stripes entangled with large fronds die in the sun while part of the coastal ocean floor turns into a waste land.
Historically the sea otter had also kept sea urchins under control, but due to over hunting in the 1800s sea otter colonies along the Northern California coast shrank significantly often leaving sea urchins without predators.
When I heard of recent studies showing that kelp absorbs twice as much carbon dioxide as originally thought and eventually stores it as biomass on the ocean floor, thus sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide, I became fascinated by emerging global efforts to help reestablish kelp forests as one way to counter climate change. I looked more closely into kelp, algae and sea weeds, their dissemination process and growing habits. On my long walks along the beaches of Point Reyes I collected ocean matter. In the studio I used the plants to create a series of mixed media cyanotypes that involved capturing the plant’s shadows by exposure to sunlight, followed by layering fields of watercolor, drawing and tracing outlines.
With the two series Littoral Forests and Undersea I want to instill in the viewer the wonderment of underwater worlds seldom seen, worlds that we may lose due to man made climate change, while they may become an essential tool for our survival on this amazing planet.
Christel Dillbohner Berkeley CA. 2022
Littoral Forest # 8 mixed media
41.5” x 21”
3200.00
Littoral Forest # 15 mixed media
41.5” x 21”
3200.00
Littoral Forest # 11 mixed media
41.5” x 21”
3200.00
Littoral Forest # 9 mixed media
41.5” x 21”
3200.00
Littoral Forest # 1 mixed media
41.5” x 21”
3200.00
Littoral Forest # 2 mixed media
41.5” x 21” 3200.00
Entanglements Concatenations
It began with a branch I found on my walks through Tilden Park behind the Berkeley hills early in the pandemic. Strong winds, unusual for the season, had been buffeting the limbs of laurel and oak that line the path. Branches and twigs, leaves, moss and lichen had fallen to the ground - and there it was: an intriguing dense network of coppery lichen still hanging onto a twig. When I picked it up the structural pattern of growth reminded me immediately of filigree geometrical crocheting.
In the studio I photographed and drew the lichen from various angles. I read up on lichen and its symbiotic life form; a composite organism of the filaments of multiple fungi species, hosting green algae or cyanobacteria in a mutalistic relationship. Lichen come in many colors, sizes and forms. They may look plant-like, but they are not plants. And they are ubiquitous: some 6–8% of Earth’s land surface may be covered by lichens.
Once I realized the marvel of lichen, it was a short mental step to exploring the interconnections of forms and their function and how they appear in nature, art and culture: interwoven rhizomes and root systems, entangled networks and road maps, invisible pulses of energy - and the unseen undercurrents that influence a humanity swirling in a pressure cooker of a self- made climate crisis.
I translated my notions into a series of water color and ink drawings on paper called Entanglements. The calligraphic mark-making and inky whirls depict a multiverse of superimposed concatenations. They are part of my ongoing visual research that explores methods of translating the concepts of interlacing, networks and interconnectedness into visuals.
Christel
Dillbohner Berkeley, CA.,2022
Entanglements mixed media
3800.00
30” x 44”
Entanglements # 5 mixed media
x 21”
Entanglements
x 21”
installation / Stewart Gallery 2024
installation / Stewart Gallery 2024
seffan@stewartgallery.com