‘Man made’ FGCU art show on display Jan. 8 to Feb. 7
Florida Gulf Coast University Art Gallery invites the public and media to an opening reception for “Man Made” exhibition featuring the environmental art of Mary Ellen Croteau, 5 to 8 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 8 at the Art Gallery. The exhibition runs through Feb. 7, and is free and open to the public.
Croteau has exhibited and lectured internationally from Florence, Italy to Seoul, Korea. She has organized, curated and juried numerous exhibitions, including “Attitudes: Good Girls/Bad Women” for Nylistasafnid/The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik in 1995, and “Are We There Yet? 40 Years of Feminist Art” at ARC Gallery in Chicago in 2008.
Her most recent exhibition, “Man Made” at the main gallery at FGCU, comments on the state of our man-made world. “Clear-cut: Views From the Train” is a line of 50 photos she took on a train trip across the U.S. and Canada in 2001, paired with personal thoughts and related conversations in a line of text running above the photos. Underneath the photos are plastic recycling bags containing the equivalent of one month’s paper waste for the average American household.
“Mountains” (2008) is a series of found photos of trash arranged in a mountain range of human design. “Living Mountain” explores the impact of waste, much of it from developed countries, on people in the third world. Croteau’s view of the plasticization of the world shows with 700 plastic bags in “Waterfall.”
This exhibit is sponsored in part by Estero Bay Buddies.
For more information about this exhibition or upcoming events, contact interim gallery director Anica Sturdivant at 590-7199 or visit http://art
gallery.fgcu.edu.
The Art Gallery is located inside the Arts Complex on FGCU’s main campus. The University is off Ben Hill Griffin Parkway, east of I-75 and between exits 123 and 128. Parking is available in Lot 7 for gallery visitors; parking passes are available at the parking kiosk at the University’s entrance.