Elizabeth Gemperlein, “Fool’s Paradise,” September 25 – November 6, 2015

Exhibition Catalog, Elizabeth Gemperlein, Fools’ Paradise

Elizabeth Gemperlein draws compelling images depicting the impact of human excess on nature’s fragility. Influenced by Romanticism and landscape painting, her work challenges the myth of a world consisting of endless natural resources. She creates rich imagery using graphite with a variety of surfaces including paper, masonite, and even packing tape. The materials themselves, as well as the presentation of the final work, diminishes the “preciousness” of the art object and focuses the viewer on the details within the drawings.

Human figures are often suspended amidst flora and fauna conveying the complex relationships between each. She portrays man’s conflicting impulses to care for and consume land and wildlife as reflections of skewed values and priorities. She also tells the story of a distant romantic landscape that laments the loss of a more balanced co-existence and of animals forced to inhabit a hostile environment where humans are too often passive witnesses. Gemperlein’s drawings lead her audience to question their relation to nature and to rethink their personal connections to the natural world.

Elizabeth Gemperlein is an artist based in Western New York. Her work has been shown throughout the US as well as in China and Sri Lanka. She received her MFA from the University at Buffalo and has taught widely at universities in the US, China, India, and Sri Lanka. She is currently an adjunct lecturer at Genessee Community College and a visiting artist at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.