MOJAVE

   

Curated by Mollie Doctrow and Gabriel Thorburn

June 5th – July 31st, 2021

05jun1:00 pmMojave: VistasPanel Discussion

26jun1:00 pmA Decade in the DesertArtist Talk with Gabriel Thorburn and Bob Killen

10jul1:00 pmPreserving the Mojavewith Ranger Phillip Gomez

24jul1:00 pmThe Digital Desertwith Dani Dodge, Allanah Vokes, Kristine Paiz

 


Mojave Catalog

Featuring artists who have participated in the The Mojave National Preserve Artists- in-Residence program, the exhibition depicts a variety of interpretations of the magnificent landscape, history, culture, ecology, and geology of the Mojave National Preserve.

Artworks include traditional and contemporary media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and installation. The exhibition includes the following artists: Gerard Burkhart, Mollie Doctrow, Dani Dodge, Christine Huhn, Natalie Larsen, Eric Merrell, Amir Moshfegh, Kristine Paiz, Britney Penouilh, Emily Silver, and Allanah Vokes.

The Mojave National Preserve Artists Foundation, a not-for-profit National Park Service Friends Group operates the Artist-in-Residence program. The goal of the program is to provide artistic and educational opportunities to promote a deeper understanding of and dialogue about the natural and cultural resources of Mojave National Preserve.

Artists selected for the program are juried by the Mojave National Preserve Artists Foundation, Park Service officials, and community representatives with artistic qualifications to form a jury panel. Artists selected for the program discover and interpret the Mojave landscape through their own creative projects.

Britney Penouilh

Mixed-media, AIR 2019

Embracing the dynamism of a changing landscape as viewed through “geologic time,” Earth Through Time, references 650 million years of transmutation in the Providence Mountains, Mojave National Preserve.

 
Mojave Miner’s Mask with Blue Black and White Hanksite
Pedestal display
Plaster cast face and crystals
24″x24″x34″

 
Stratigraphy
Pages from Michel Digonnet’s “Hiking the Mojave Desert”, plaster, acrylic on panel
36”x36”

 
Erosion
Pages from Michel Digonnet’s “Hiking the Mojave Desert”, plaster, acrylic on
panel
24”x36”

 
Earth Through Time (Aerial)
Pages from Michel Digonnet’s “Hiking the Mojave Desert”, plaster, acrylic on panel
24”x36”

Emily Silver

Mixed-media painting, AIR 2019

Silver’s work investigates the role paint plays in our psychic understanding of land. Her residency work will include a series of paintings inspired by walks on the Mojave Road. Conveying abstract sensations such as light, ghosts, patterns and textures, silence, and aridity, her visual vocabulary includes flows and aggregates of water, pigment, salt, sediment, cracked mud, and relics of textural materials, often superimposed over satellite photos, and maps.

 
Shade-Mojave Road West of Rock House
Watercolor
22″x30″ framed at 28″x36″

 
Crossing Watson Wash – Mojave Road East of Rock House
Watercolor
22″x30″ framed at 28″x36″

Dani Dodge

Interdisciplinary artist, installation, AIR 2021

Incorporating painting, sculpting, and videography, Dodge will create an immersive environment allowing visitors to see and experience the beauty of the adaptations that desert species have developed to survive.

 
Untitled 1
15″x12″

Eric Merrell

Painting, AIR 2020

Working on location Merrell will create a series of paintings depicting both day and night time. The work will showcase the contrasting moods between these two halves of the desert.

 
Two Hills Darkening
Oil
18″x24″ framed at 24″x30″

 
Phenomena
Oil
18″x24″ framed at 24″x30″

 
Double Mojave
Oil
18″x24″ framed at 24″x30″

Kristine Paiz

Videography, painting, AIR 2020

HALY’A ‘AHWAT is an interpretation of a chronicle of people who have lived in the Mojave dating to the 1600s. Paiz will create an interactive, narrative video, ‘Aha Makhav, posing questions about the history of the Mojave and the ghosts of the desert. ‘Aha Makhav will be projected from a podium toward the center of the room, playing on a loop. Visitors are encouraged to walk through the projection for an immersive experience. Paiz will also exhibit a series of corresponding paintings.

 
Havasupai
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
18″x24″

 
Avi Havasuts
Acrylic + Sand on Canvas Paper
16″x20″

 
Avi Kwa’Ame
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
18” x 24” framed

Mollie Doctrow

Printmaking, AIR 2019

Doctrow will exhibit, Through the Flowers: Plant Communities of Mojave National Preserve, a series of black and white botanical woodcuts showing individual species and plant habitats. The series will show plants growing at different elevations and in habitats such as creosote shrub scrub and pinyon-juniper woodlands. The exhibit will include an interactive shrine box honoring the Mojave Yucca.

 
Mojave Yucca 2
Woodcut
14″x18″ framed at 20″x24″

 
Hedgehog Cactus
Woodcut
9″x12″ framed at 12″x15″

 
Barrel Cactus
Woodcut
8″x10″ framed at 15″x12″

Natalie Larsen

Drawing, AIR 2020

Larson’s work explores themes of the westward trek in the United States, migration, spirituality, and the landscape. Her work in the Mojave will explore the homesteaded area in the Preserve as well as those that traveled through the Old Spanish Trail and other passages, and how this impacted the native inhabitants. Larson will exhibit a series of drawings about these histories, using research and images from the residency.

 
Red Landscape
Colored pencil on paper
22″x30″ framed at 26.5″x34″

 
Orange Landscape
Colored pencil on paper
22″x30″ framed at 26.5″x34″

 
Yellow Landscape
Colored pencil on paper
22″ x 30″ framed at 26.5″ x 34″

Allanah Vokes

Digital drawing, AIR 2020

Vokes created a video interpolation of images of the Mojave National Preserve projected into a StyleGAN2 model trained on screenshots from the video game “Fallout 3: New Vegas”.

Christine Huhn

Photography, AIR 2019

Huhn will document the fragile desert landscape using black and white film photography that she will process in her studio.

 
Lava Tube
B&W Photograph
16”x20” framed at 20”x24”

 
Still Standing
B&W Photograph
11″x14″ framed at 16″x20″

 
Upwards Formation
B&W Photograph
11″x14″ framed at 16″x20″

 
Corral at Sunset
B&W Photograph
11″x14″ framed at 16″x20″

Amir Moshfegh

 
The Wave
Color Photograph
17”x22” framed at 20”x29”

 
The Spine
Color Photograph
17”x22” framed at 20”x29”

 
The Float
Color Photograph
17”x22” framed at 20”x29”

Gerard Burkhart

 
Deer Springs Corral
Color Photograph 31”x24” framed


 Blood Moon Eclipse
Color Photograph 31”x24” framed

 
Silver Cholla
Color Photograph 18”x24” framed