Alison Moritsugu

Artist Alison Moritsugu, Densho community activist and artist Erin Shigaki, and curator Sarah Freeman discuss Moons and Internment Stones, an exhibit of paintings of the moon and of stones collected by Moritsugu’s grandfather in the Santa Fe Internment Camp during World War II. This event is presented in partnership with Densho, a nonprofit organization committed to documenting the oral histories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.

Excerpt from the conversation: www.densho.org

Artist Alison Moritsugu’s work explores our relationship with nature and how the stories we tell about landscapes—often idealized to hide what lies beneath the surface—shape our conceptions of the world around us. Moons and Internment Stones features watercolors of rocks her grandfather collected while incarcerated in the Santa Fe internment camp during WWII along with oil paintings of the moon that connect Moritsugu, her grandfather, and her family across time and place.

www.brattleboromuseum.org

This exhibition pays tribute to contemporary women artists represented in the collection of the Knoxville Museum of Art. KMA has actively sought to acquire outstanding works by women, who have long lagged behind their male counterparts when it comes to museum-level recognition. These works call overdue attention to women’s significant role in reshaping the contemporary art landscape.

The artists featured in this exhibition are Patty Chang, Janet Fish, Marcia Goldenstein, Michelle Grabner, EJ Hauser, Julie Heffernan, Jean Hess, Kate Katomski, Karen LaMonte, Pam Longobardi, Lauren Luloff, Alex McQuilkin, Alison Mortisugu, Althea Murphy-Price, Marilène Oliver, Amy Pleasant, Sumi Putman, Nancy Rubins, Tommie Rush, Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Jemima Stehli, and Toots Zynsky.

www.knoxart.org

Co-organized by Wave Hill and Lehman College Art Gallery, Eco-Urgency: Now or Never, is a collaborative exhibition that shows the varied responses artists have to the unfolding ecological crisis. Climate change, pollution, competition for natural resources and food insecurity threaten to overwhelm our planet and make earth uninhabitable. To encourage public engagement and deepen awareness of these issues, the artists in Eco-Urgency: Now or Never rely on research, critical analysis, observation and direct action that manifest as objects, videos, performances and community organizing. There are no easy answers, yet Eco-Urgency distills the current moment so that it can be approached, understood and acted on, provoking conversation and shared ideas.

Artists include Allora & Calzadilla, Tatiana Arocha, Hannah Chalew, Lionel Cruet, Nicky Enright, Susan Rowe Harrison, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, Mary Mattingly, Alison Moritsugu, Alexis Rockman, SPURSE, Candace Thompson, Natalie Collette Wood, Suné Woods and Sasha Wortzel.

www.wavehill.org

Visit with Alison Moritsugu in her studio as she talks about her work with Laura Vookles, Chair of the Hudson River Museum’s Curatorial Department.

Moritsugu’s work is included in the group exhibition, Landscape Art and Virtual Travel: Highlights from the Collections of the HRM and Art Bridges (on view until February 6, 2022).

www.hrm.org

Originally scheduled to open in early April 2020, Eco-Urgency: Artists Make the Case was reimagined as an online exhibition due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual format featured a weekly series of artist conversations, nature walks and foraging tips all focused on critical issues affecting ecosystems and biodiversity. The parallels between the ecological issues addressed by the artists and injustices made apparent during the global pandemic added urgency to presenting these works.

“In my conversation with Curator Eileen Jeng Lynch, I discuss two paintings, We are the ash (Remnant) and We are the ash (Vestige). Both paintings were made years prior in response to the presence of the invasive emerald ash borer, an insect destroying North America’s ash forests. During the first few months of the pandemic, I could not help but notice parallels between the emerald ash borer and the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the importance of data and evidence-based science communication.” –Alison Moritsugu

Artists include Rachel Frank, Susan Rowe Harrison, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, Courtney Mattison, Alison Moritsugu, Alexis Rockman, Francesco Simeti, Candace Thompson, Sasha Wortzel.

www.wavehill.org

www.hyperallergic.com

The Tipping Point: Artists Address Climate Change explores the relationship between nature and humanity, capturing the environmental impacts of human resources. Artists present work that first appears beautiful but, ultimately, reveals damage, transmutation and the decomposed. Tipping Point offers a fresh perspective on critical environmental issues and exemplifies our capacity to understand, adapt and motivate effective action in response to this issue. Artists include J. Henry Fair, David Maisel, Alison Moritsugu, Richard Parrish, Jill Pelto.
www.rocklandartcenter.org

For centuries, the Hudson Valley has attracted intrepid artists to explore and depict its natural splendor. Walks with Artists: The Hudson Valley and Beyond examines the key role played by artists in bringing views of nature indoors. Forty paintings and prints from the Museum’s permanent collection from the 19th century to today underscore the centrality of landscape in our thought, then as now. Artists include Thomas Cole, George Innes, Fanny Palmer, George Gardner Symons, Ralph Fasanella, Richard Haas, Richard Mayhew, Alison Moritsugu, Ellen Kozak, and Jack Stuppin.
www.hrm.org

Sam Mowe visited my studio in late July. Excerpts from our conversation can be found on The Garrison Institute Blog.
www.garrisoninstitute.org/blog

My log pieces and paintings are featured on the Juxtapoz website.
www.juxtapoz.com

Moritsugu’s new work continues her exploration of human interaction with the natural world and with a changing environment. Her works focus on how seemingly small changes in this relationship can have potentially larger implications in the future. The exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, sculpture and wallpapers. The theme in Moritsugu’s current work can be seen as a cautionary tale for our times, confronting how we objectify nature as tourists, commodify the land for its resources, and adversely control and shape the environment to suit our needs. Moritsugu skillfully weaves together art historical tropes with present day environmental concerns to examine our past and present relationship with the land.
www.littlejohncontemporary.com

Les Femmes Folles is a blog about women artists. I talk about my upcoming exhibition at Littlejohn Contemporary and the subtle way feminism plays a role in my work.
http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/

DJ Pangburn’s insightful article in GOOD Magazine.
http://magazine.good.is/

Christopher Jobson writes about the concepts behind my work for Colossal.
www.thisiscolossal.com

My log paintings are featured on the Hi-Fructose website.
www.hifructose.com

Two log paintings The Approaching Storm and Tall Sassafras Slice I are featured in Orion Magazine’s September/October issue which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. My paintings accompany an article by Jordan Fisher Smith titled “The Wilderness Paradox” which questions if the notion of wilderness means untouched by humans. Orion Magazine is a 30-year-old bimonthly publication about nature, culture and place.

For more information on Orion magazine: www.orionmagazine.org

“Disconnect between real actions and real-time becomes increasingly evident in our fast-paced, technologically saturated urban environments. Selected artworks in ego/eco: environmental art for collective consciousness aim to confront traditional notions of “spectatorship,” promoting involvement over complacency through the inclusion of engaged public art practices and environmental art conveying a collective call to action. Juxtapositions of mediums, content, scale, forced perspectives and changes in cadence and flow will encourage viewers to become both physically and psychologically aware of their own roles as “spectators”—symbolic of a greater need for action and social reform in the pursuit of sustainability.” – Allison Town & Emily Tyler, curators

Catalog available at Amazon

The Pond, the Mirror, the Kaleidoscope is an exhibition of emerging and established artists who graduated from SVA and are working in the Symbolist tradition. These “neo-Symbolists” make mythological and dreamlike pictures that challenge prevailing assumptions about narrative, subjectivity and figurative painting itself. As the exhibition title suggests, subjects may be environmental (“the pond”), societal and cultural (“the mirror”), or a post-apocalyptic, futuristic mash-up (“the kaleidoscope”).

www.sva.com