ARTIST STATEMENT
My newest body of work, The National Park Project, has resulted as a continuation of my works in the Fragility of the Sacred series, comprising paintings and individual handmade artists’ books integrating idea, text and visual images, with the theme of fragility.
My most recent series aspires to explore the National Parks as pristine environments that need to be considered as sacred to protect the land and environment which serves as our nation’s natural legacy. The exhibition and research were funded, in part, from an Artist Grant through the Illinois Arts Council Agency; the support allowed me to visit and photograph the five national parks that are in Utah and do continuous research for my artwork. Most importantly, I am reflecting on the impact of climate change, tourism, and man’s use of natural resources on each park; the paintings will reflect these concerns by representing the natural beauty, plants and animals impacted and threatened, and using text to address the fragility of the natural environment there.
Our stewardship of the earth proves increasingly important. For many years, my work has addressed the fragility of nature, and reflected my vast love for nature. I want my current work on the National Parks to address this alarming circumstance by expressing the wondrous beauty of the natural environment, while reminding us of its fragility. It is only with strong attention to our human impact that we can reverse what are dangerous trends; we must take action now before it is too late.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Beth Shadur has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drawing Center in NYC. She has created over 150 large public murals as public, private and community art projects in both the United States and Great Britain. She has taught and served as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities and her work appears in many publications, books and catalogues, including Twentieth Century Watercolors, Abbeville Press; Art and Cartography, Art Institute of Chicago.
Shadur has been awarded numerous Ragdale Fellowships and is a Thomas Watson Fellow from Brown University; from 2004-6, she served as Executive Director of ARC Gallery, Chicago. She participated in the Cool Globes Public Art Project in Chicago in 2007, and in 2008, was Artist-in-Residence at the Burren College of Art in Ireland through a Governor’s Award for International Arts Exchange from the Illinois Arts Council. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and at the Harfnarborg Art Museum in Iceland. She is the Gallery Director at Prairie State College in Illinois, and is an independent curator as well.
© Beth Shadur