9725 Dixie Highway
Louisville, KY 40272
(502) 933 – 0029
www.lfpl.org
Hours: Monday – Thursday 9 am-9 pm, Friday – Saturday 9 am-5 pm, Sunday 1-5 pm
Challenged Landscapes: in City, on Land, over Water
Featuring Dianna Temple, Chelsea Welsh, Lynn Whitney, Michael Wilson
Dates: September 8 – November 12, 2023
Events: Reception: September 9, 6pm – 8pm
Over the past several decades, dramatic climate events, industrial expansion, and intensifying human needs have radically challenged the earth and the resources upon which we depend. This group of artists examine four distinct regions in the United States and highlight timeless yet very current themes: our quality and care for life-sustaining land and water.
Michael Wilson, without an agenda but with a particular eye for and sensitivity to what has become the margins of his home city, tenderly shows us signs of its ongoing determination to survive. Through his work, he includes us in his journey and sympathies, revealing the shining heart of a city often seen only in the distance.
Chelsea Welsh discovers a similar struggle of survival in the Arnold Arboretum, part of Fredrick Law Olmsted’s “Emerald Necklace” in Boston, the first public land ever set aside to be protected from development. Welsh’s images and their titles suggest an overgrowth, a wish to find air and space to survive beyond their 281 protected acres.
Lynn Whitney limits her investigation of the fourth smallest and most shallow of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie, to the Western Basin, the 96-mile stretch between Toledo and Cleveland. Whitney’s images reflection the myriad of systems contributing to Lake Erie’s ongoing vulnerability and also the Lake’s persistence in attracting us to her shores.
Dianna Temple’s work within the 174,000 sq mile Ogallala aquifer poignantly reveals what has become of a vast landscape because of our nation’s hunger for affordable foods and the water needed to grow them. In a quiet and subtle way, she exposes the secrets of the invisible water supply and its effect on the landscape more than 70 years later.
These four share a common hope: that their lenses lay beautifully bare the challenges facing our shared landscape; that their images offer hope in their viewing.
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