Forster Art Complex Dennis Gallery: February 11 - March 29, 2019

General Artist Statement

The collection of artworks I’m presenting at Austin College were inspired by notions of landscape and the conservation of our natural environment. This exhibition presents works created from 1999-2019 and features photography, drawing, painting and printmaking.

As an image maker, I am motivated by love and out of concern for the conservation of nature. My motivation is closely linked to growing up having loving experiences in nature at an early age. I spent the majority of my time as a youth outdoors between the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma and the White Mountains in Arizona. Generally speaking, I’m very much interested and influenced by ideas about landscape, the environment, endangered and invasive species; endangered landscape and the sacred and profane landscape.

I consider myself a mixed media artist working in printmaking, painting, drawing, and photography. I work extensively en plein air (in the open air) drawing on paper and transparency film that later becomes mixed media or printed artworks. I love being outdoors and traveling to new places visiting what I consider endangered landscapes that have geological, mythological and historical significance. I really feel that through working en plein air I’m creating an experience that takes me beyond a spectator looking out onto the landscape and into a place.

Evolution of the Dot

Since 2006, Prose has been using colored dots to represent the varying degrees of conservation status of species. Recently the dots have evolved into covering the color on the compositional surface. The dot becomes a circle shading or covering the landscape and skyscape, which inhibits the viewer from seeing the image as a whole.

Retracing Steps: Kealia #3
intaglio and screenprint
8" x 16"
2018

Retracing Steps: Possible Site of Olowalu Massacre 1790, #1
intaglio and screenprint
8" x 16"
2017

Sea-Skyscape #10
screenprint, heavy body acrylic paint and color pencil
16" x 16"
2018

Sea-Skyscape #11
screenprint, heavy body acrylic paint and graphite pencil
16" x 16"
2018

Sea Skyscape #12
screenprint, heavy body acrylic paint and graphite pencil
16" x 16"
2018

Sea-Skyscape #13
screenprint, heavy body acrylic paint
16" x 16"
2018

Retracing Steps: Waihee Valley
intaglio and graphite
8" x 16"
2018

Retracing Steps: Kealia Wildlife Refuge
intaglio and screenprint
8" x 16"
2017

Feminine Rock Formation

Society has assigned gender to nature, the most prominent of these being Mother Nature. In western civilization and for centuries in indigenous cultures around the world, our planet has been referred to as female. In her series Feminine Rock Formation, Prose personifies nature as female in large-scale drawings of abstracted vulvaesque rock formations. Prose gathers inspiration for this series from the flowery abstractions of Georgia O’Keeffe to the monumental ceremonial banquet of The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.

The genesis of Feminine Rock Formation series came to Prose as she researched the history of Maui Hawai’i’s last great chief Keopuolani. Keopuolani was a daughter of Kings, wife of a king, and mother of two kings, was the last direct descendant of the ancient kings of Hawai'i and Maui and the last of the female ali'i (chief) whose mana (supernatural force or power) was equal to that of the gods. In 1819, a year before the missionaries came to Hawai’i, Keopuolani joined Kaahumanu in persuading the current King to eat publicly with women, thereby breaking one of the most stringent taboos in ancient kapu belief. Prose wondered if this action could have been a protofeminist act and wished to honor Keopuolani as a gift to Maui in a monumental drawing. In the ancient kapu system of belief, rank is embedded in the land and its protection. Prose considered the link of rank to the land and the historical feminization of the earth as she abstracted rock formations into large-scale drawings.

Feminine Rock Formation #2: Ko'olau Forest Reserve
color pencil
58" x 84"
2018

Red Listed 2006-2010

A common theme in Prose's artwork is wildlife conservation. In many artworks, she will include the conservation status of the species/subject within the title of the artwork or symbolized by color dots. For example, critically endangered is symbolized by the use of a red dot in the composition. Critically endangered could mean that the species/subject is considered in danger of becoming extinct or it could mean there is not enough research to evaluate its current existence status and it is already lost to the world. The colored dots fall on the landscape playing a role in both the compositions harmony and disruption.

The theme of wildlife conservation began in 2009 through an artist grant in which Prose worked in coordination with Brian Aucone, general curator at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Prose made several trips to the Oklahoma City Zoo documenting animals identified as having status on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List.

Oklahoma Sample
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
From the Collection of William Cunningham
2009

Australian Gastric Frog
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
From the Collection of Sage Gilbert
2009

Pygmy Hippo
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Darwin Tortoise: Endangered
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Dumerill's Ground Boa
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Grevy's Zebra: Endangered
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Standing Day Gecko: Vulnerable
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Egyptian Tortoise
screenprint, acrylic paint, heat transfer, on wood panel
15" x 15"
2009

Sacred and Profane 2013-Present

Prose is very much interested in ideas about landscape, the environment and how religion can play a role in the way people might value nature. Often in her work, Prose makes use of religious illustrations by Rev. Clarence Larkin from his 1918 book ‘Dispensational Truth: God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages.’ Larkin was an American Baptist pastor whose work greatly influenced conservative Protestant visual culture of the 20^th century. Larkin’s extreme interpretations through his illustrations and writings describe periods in Biblical history in which God relates to human beings through covenants. Prose is attracted to Larkin’s carefully drawn illustrations and bewildered by their content. In her work, she uses the illustrations as relics in the landscape whose language only elders or tribesmen, studied in their dialect, could access.

Langur Monkey: Critically Endangered
screenprint and Clarence Larkin Illustration
22" x 30"
2011

Calico Pennant: Least Concern
screenprint and Clarence Larkin Illustration
15" x 15"
2012

One Black Capped Vireo
screenprint and Clarence Larkin Illustration
15" x 15"
2012

Mountain Boomer
screenprint and Clarence Larkin Illustration
15" x 15"
2012

Black Capped Vireo: Vulnerable and Endangered
screenprint and Clarence Larkin Illustration
38" x 48"
2012

Texhoma Landscape #1
screenprint, pen and ink, acrylic paint, and Clarence Larkin Illustration
11" x 30"
2015

Truth or Consequence, New Mexico Landscape
screenprint, pen and ink, acrylic paint, and Clarence Larkin Illustration
11" x 30"
2016

Female American Bison and Two Calves: Near Threatened
screenprint
15" x 22"
2014

Texhoma Landscape #2
screenprint
2015

On Site From Maui

Prose created this collection of drawings during an artist residency on the Hawaiian Island of Maui over a period of 14 days. She worked ‘en plein air,’ which is a French expression meaning “in the open air” and describes the act of painting, or in this case drawing outdoors. Plein Air painting became central to impressionism but didn’t gain popularity in the United States until the national parks were being founded in the late nineteenth century. Like early impressionists, Prose sought to capture fleeting atmospheric qualities of the landscape’s natural light and color. Each drawing was completed in one sitting which took about two hours. These preliminary sketches served as investigative observations.