Quincy Art Center to open new exhibit about environmental issues on Saturday

QUINCY — Quincy Art Center will open a new exhibit this weekend titled Environmental Impact II. The opening reception for this exhibit is from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 16, with an artist’s talk at 1:30 p.m. The reception and exhibit are free and open to the public. The exhibit will close on Saturday, April 20.

Premiering the exhibition was the new James Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla. Environmental Impact II has since toured across the United States in prominent art institutions from 2013 to 2016 and again from 2019 to 2022.

Environmental Impact II is a traveling museum exhibition produced by David J. Wagner, LLC. Its two-fold purpose is to recognize, document and share the work of leading contemporary artists who chose to focus their work on global and local environmental issues and to heighten public awareness and concern about the intentional or unintentional consequences of human action or inaction through the power of the artworks featured in the exhibit.

The 60 paintings, photographs, prints, installations and sculptures in Environmental Impact II are different from traditional works of art because they deal with ominous environmental issues. The issues portrayed in these artworks range from the implications of continuous resource development, industrial scale consumption and climate change to oil spills, the perils of nuclear energy, drought, wildfires, diminishing water resources and other modern phenomena.

The biological effects of pollution on vulnerable species such as honey bees and the laboratory process by which genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially combined into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal resulting in genetically modified organisms are also explored, all of which impact people and the other inhabitants that populate the planet today.

Wagner drew upon a diverse range of artists whose hard-hitting works propel the Environmental Movement today. These artists (subject to change) are:

• Arnold, Chester, Sonoma, CA
• Bateman, Robert, Fulford Harbour, BC, Canada
• Ferguson, Walter W., (b. 1930, New York, d. 2015, Israel)
• Freda, Britt, Burton, WA
• Frost, Jeff, Palms Springs, CA
• Goin, Peter, Reno, NV
• Greene, Scott, Bernalillo, NM
• Hackenberg, Karen, Port Townsend, WA
• Harvey, Guy, Grand Cayman, BWI
• Helsaple, Mary, Sedona, AZ
• Johnson, Cole, Deposit, NY
• Kerbow, Michael, San Francisco, CA
• Lebofsky, Lisa, Accord, NY
• Osborne, Leo, Anacortes, WA
• Pas, Rick, Lapeer, MI
• Santora, Carol, Lyman, ME
• Stupich, Martin, Albuquerque, NM
• Volpe, Christopher, Portsmouth, NH
• Ullberg, Kent, Corpus Christi, TX
• Walter, Bart, Westminster, MD
• Woolf, Suze, Seattle, WA