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NCA5 Images

A vibrant landscape painting of people walking in a hay field, others standing on a hill with pine trees in the background, a stream with many fish swimming in it, birds and people in a pond planting hay and measuring water depth and birds all around.

JILLIAN PELTO, REPLANTING RESILIENCE (DIPTYCH), (2022, WATERCOLOR AND COLORED PENCIL)

 Artist's statement: This work addresses the ways humans and natural habitats are responding to climate adversity in the Gulf of Maine. Three line graphs are incorporated into the painting. They depict, from bottom to top: historic sea level rise from 1950-2021 and projections for future rise to 2050; the increase in National Wildlife Refuge acreage in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire from 2001-2020; the increase in the percentage of US adults who supported policies to protect the environment from 2008-2019. Together, these data show how public efforts are rising to meet the tide.

 

WATERCOLOR COLLAGE of houses, fires, smoke, water, snow and ice

NIKKI WAY, SNOWED/ICED IN, (2021, WATERCOLOR COLLAGE) 

Artist's statement: The Great Lakes region is considered a future refuge area against the extreme heat to come. However, there is much uncertainty about the future of our weather. Climate change may bring more intense lake effect snow and ice storms, even as snow and ice cover decrease overall. Our homes, ecosystems, and economies are at risk and we need to be more prepared. Water levels are already sweeping away houses, mangling infrastructure, and disrupting Indigenous traditions. This piece reflects my fear and uncertainty around climate change in the Great Lakes region.

Painting of livestock in a field under cloudy skies.
JULIA Y., YOUTH ENTRY, GRADE 9, THE OVERTAKER (2023, PAINT)

Artist's statement: I was trying to convey the atmospheric pollution caused by agriculture and livestock. The yellowed wash was meant to be an ode to older paintings, which in my viewpoint, produced a somber mood. The thriving issue of climate change was what I wanted to visually stimulate in my piece. The longstanding battle of protecting the earth we share feels reminiscent to the battles we had, and still have, amongst society. The opponent has not differed and it is still us.

DRY earth cracked and seemingly sewed together with a red zig zag yarn with green leaves and tree stumps in a distance.
TAMMY WESTKEEP IT TOGETHER (2021, SITE-SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL ART)

Artist’s statement: Texas and much of the Western United States have been experiencing climate change-induced severe drought. This site-specific piece focuses on our collective climate grief. “Keep It Together” conceptually wills climate change and the drought to end by literally tying cracked earth back together. I wanted this piece to convey the desperate situation that we are in by mimicking surgical sutures or stitches with red string and nails. If we must resort to tying our world back together, we have nothing.

See more images by visiting the USGCRP's Art X Climate Gallery