Un/Natural is an exploration of fictional biospheres and environments that are heavily influenced by lichen, fungus, moss and other plant materials. The symbiotic connection between fungus and lichen is fascinating, each coexisting in a mutually beneficial relationship to one another. Some of the key features in this series involve spread, growth, protection, fragility and the relationship between the organism and its host.
Excerpt from the Un/Natural Show (Quest Gallery 2017):
Kate Civiero, an artist working and living in Eugenia, Ontario, creates botanical glass works that remind us of the transformative power of the elements and human agency exercised to either interfere or revere that which the earth provides. Both referential and alien all at once, the delicate glass sculptures domed in their very own biospheres appear to be the last of their kind or perhaps a set of new species, begging for protection from the outside world. Civiero’s new small 3D works incorporating glass houses also reverberate the fragility of our ecosystems, while the large vertical glass work entitled Symbioses serves to remind us of how generative and resilient nature can be in spite of its constant extraction, erasure or manipulation.
2015 – present (series ongoing)
