A Summer Journey and Color Writing
Luftwerk—Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero–Chicago, IL
A Summer Journey
Medium: Mixed media
Location: Joutras Gallery, Regenstein Center
Artist statement: A Summer Journey is an installation that captures fragments of the landscape we inhabit. The work is an attempt to imagine a time when prairie land occupied two-thirds of the midwestern landscape, when it was expansive and rich in biodiversity, a holistic interconnected ecosystem, with healthy soil, abundant flora, and myriads of bees and butterflies. We think of this as a practice of re-finding—reflecting on what was and can be again.
Collaborating Scientists:
Color Writing
Medium: Backlit digital print, transparencies
Location: Visitor Center
Artist statement: How is nature’s palette composed? Is there more to the colors we perceive in nature? The scientific process of chromatography—Greek for “color writing”—inspired this artwork. Here, prairie grass, seemingly a single color, reveals component pigments: green chlorophyll and orange and yellow carotenoids. Look up and around—patterns of color appear like abstract watercolor paintings, transforming the Visitor Center into a canvas for visible and hidden prairie hues. Experience nature’s palette—every shade, tone, and tint—in the Garden’s Dixon Prairie. Ecologists work through the seasons to restore this important habitat.
