HOME
ArtPark21 put together an exhibition at the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center. My new Corn Pole is there, through 2020.
The Blue Fold will be exhibited at The Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico from March 6 through May 10, 2020
Opening Reception:
Friday, March 6, 2020, 5-8pm
at the Center for Contemporary Arts
1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Having been awarded a residency established by the National Parks Arts Foundation, artists Julie and Matthew Chase-Daniel spent a month documenting, experiencing, and living on the island of Loggerhead Key in the Fall of 2017. There, they developed The Blue Fold, a body of work exploring the perspectives of the island, its inhabitants and the devastating impact of climate change.
The Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe (CCA) brings selections from this series to its ‘spector ripps project space’ housed within CCA’s Tank Garage Gallery this Spring, opening March 6, 2020. Matthew & Julie Chase-Daniel: The Blue Fold is a culmination of their experiences on the island, the daily observation of and cohabitation with its flora, fauna and weather patterns. Matthew and Julie have worked together extensively since 1984. While The Blue Fold features photography by Matthew and poetry from Julie, it is entirely a collaborative effort.
At the start of their residency in September of 2017, they and millions of others were evacuated from south Florida. Loggerhead Key is one of seven islands in The Dry Tortugas National Park, situated between Key West and Cuba, and would directly face Hurricane Irma. Once cleared for return, Matthew and Julie continued their residency later that month, cleaning up palm fronds and broken glass as well as adapting to the radically different, distraction-free environment of isolated island living.
The exhibition showcases composite photography evocative of field reports, aesthetically documenting the island’s ecosystem from various perspectives with intimate presentations of sea urchins, coconuts, coral and other organic ephemera. Interjected are poems on canvas, accompanied by QR codes so that audiences may listen to a recording reading from Julie Chase-Daniel, serving as diaristic impressions—both introspective in their reflection, and objective in their description. With the effects of human development are a pressing concern at the heart of their project, Matthew and Julie’s explorations at Loggerhead Key Dry Tortugas National Park serves as a timely ode to a disappearing landscape.