Lewis deSoto

Site Projects 1980-1986

The Site Projects were the step between my purely photographic work of the late 70’s and early 80’s and the sculpture that was to take precedent by 1989. The work was a philosophical response to “earthworks” sculptors like Smithson, Heizer and DeMaria. What issue was taken, was the destructive process where bulldozers marked and moved the earth to serve their metaphorical purpose.

The Site Projects used the site as a stage that left a dwindling trace of my work there. I added a temporal element that was echoed in many works that took place during long camera exposures at night. These works dealt with notions of power and scale; like Chinese landscapes, these works compared the scale of the human against the overarching embrace of the world, the stars and the galaxies.

Most projects began with drawings, some formalized instructions that could be reengaged at a later date or by myself or other artists. This was, in part, a response to the ephemeral nature of color print photography at the time. Now these works can be translated digitally and placed on paper with pigments for permanent display. The desired print size of the work has also grown over the years, starting at 18” x 18” and ending at 30” x 30” sometime in the early 1990’s. I have engaged larger sizes now that these are translated to digital media.

Lewis deSoto resume.pdf

Sonja Hinrichsen

Snow Drawings is an ongoing project where I “draw” large design systems in the environment by walking lines into fresh snow surfaces with snowshoes. Ideal “canvases” are deforested areas and frozen lakes. The finished pieces are ephemeral. While they take hours to create, their duration is entirely unpredictable.  Sometimes they are coated over by new snow shortly after completion.

This project began during an artist residency in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in winter 2009. At first entirely out of play, I started designing patterns in my mind, which I then tried to “transfer” onto the snow by walking lines in untouched snow surfaces. As vast fields of snow became huge “canvases”, I became the “pen”. My designs have since become much more elaborate and refined, and I have continued this project in other landscapes across the United States and abroad.

During the past winters this work has evolved into large social practice art events. Working with community has enabled me to create monumental pieces while at the same time engaging people in fun outdoor winter activity in stunning landscapes. I have so far conducted three major community art pieces; in 2012 at Rabbit Ears Pass in the Western Colorado Mountains and in early 2013 on frozen Lake Catamount near Steamboat Springs; in collaboration with the Steamboat Springs Arts Council, the Nature Conservancy of Colorado, the Steamboat Springs Public Library and the Legacy Education Fund (Colorado). In early 2014 I covered a small lake in New York’s Hudson Valley hosted by the Columbia Nature Conservancy, and I was invited to work in the French Alps, sponsored by the Serre Chevalier Skiing Organization. In each of these events I created monumental size drawings with community participation. They could only be seen from the air in their entirety – and only for a few days.

The creative process itself constitutes a significant part of this work. It is important to me that participants experience the elements of nature while they help me transform their own familiar snow landscape into a piece of art. I hope that the aerial photographs that I take right after completion of each piece can demonstrate also to a larger audience how the landscape is transformed into a piece of art through a system of designs. This changes our perception of the landscape and accentuates the beauty and magic of the natural environment, and thus inspires awe and appreciation for art as well as for nature. I deem this important – especially at a time when modern society is becoming increasingly alienated from the natural world. I believe that for a successful future of our race we will need to reconnect with our planet’s nature, understand it better and take better stewardship thereof.

As an environmentalist it is important to me that my interventions in nature are subtle and leave no lasting traces. I am not interested in creating lasting artworks, as I believe that our world is over-saturated with man-made products. I like to unfold my work into large immersive experiences, however I prefer that it live on in its documentation only, and – hopefully – in the memories of my audiences as well as those who participate in the creative effort.

Sonja Hinrichsen resume.pdf