While on sabbatical researching my Climate Ghosts project, I began exploring the ways that visual arts can help us grapple with the unsettling contradictions of climate change. These paintings convey changes primarily in the Great Lakes and other cold regions, where the waters are rising, forests are dying, fire cycles are changing, wildlife is vanishing, and people are struggling. But these are the places that we still love, places that remain heartbreakingly beautiful even as they undergo massive transformation.
Click on thumbnail images in the galleries below to see the full painting or sketch and a brief description.
Click on thumbnail images in the galleries below to see the full painting or sketch and a brief description.
Tipping Points
This series of paintings (in progress) ask the viewer to imagine that they are in a future museum, looking at collections from the 2020s. Each painting portrays a tipping point, captured at the moment of massive change. Future museum goers might look at these collection objects, asking: "What were they thinking in the 2020s? Did they respond to those clear tipping points warning them of irreversible climate change?" The painting reflect my years as a PhD student in Seattle's Burke Museum, where I worked on the avian collections. Clicking on each gallery image will allow you to read the museum label. You can scroll through the StoryMap, or just view the images below.
Part of this project will include an exploration of reindeer translocations around the world; for more on this project, please visit Reindeer on the Move
Part of this project will include an exploration of reindeer translocations around the world; for more on this project, please visit Reindeer on the Move
Caribou and Reindeer Migrations
Reindeer and caribou have been central to human life across the global north for millennia. They are crucial partners in the fight against Arctic climate change, because their browsing can keep shrubs at bay, thus increasing albedo and cooling local climates. But across the Arctic, reindeer and caribou populations are crashing. They have retreated from roughly half their 19th century range, and their populations have dropped by 56% in the past decade. Translocating herds to viable habitats may become critical as warming reduces the utility of current range. Yet how do we move reindeer—and other threatened migratory species—in a rapidly changing world with complex geopolitical boundaries? In my current book project I explore the colonial and post-colonial histories of reindeer/caribou translocations.
Feather by Feather: Birds of the Great Lakes
People have viewed birds as sentinels of change for millennia. What do birds now tell us about restoration and recovery in the Great Lakes, and about the continuing challenges we face with our more-than-human kin? You can click on thumbnails below to see larger images, or scroll through the StoryMap.
Lake Superior Studies
Vanya
In many of these paintings, Vanya (our elderly pit bull who died in April 2021), was on a journey north to understand the changes he's seeing. Why Vanya? Because he' was our brave scout and close companion on this terrifying journey into an uncertain future. These paintings and Vanya's story will become part of a children's story about hope and change.
Commissioned Portraits
To raise money for local charities, I've been doing a series of commissioned portraits. Some are below; you can view the full collection here. If you would like to arrange one, please contact me at nelangst @ gmail dot com
