Walking through the Fishbowl Gallery has felt more like taking a meditative hike through the woods and along the coast ever since "Island Found" opened in the Fishbowl Gallery last Friday.
Ouda Baxter, '11 and Ben Livingston, '13 are exhibiting the work they made as their Kent Island Fellowship projects. The artists lived on the remote island for two months, experimenting with print-making, sculpture, painting and photography.
Livingston and Baxter's work actively seeks to evoke the experience of physically being on the island for their viewers.
"My hope is that this experience is conveyed in the results of the encounters presented. Can you smell the balsam fir? The sea air? The long grasses waving in the wind, the morning chill before the sun dissipates everything?" reads Baxter's statement accompanying the exhibition.
Baxter's body of work allows the viewer access into what feels like a intimate relationship with nature. The prints, which differ in size and are mosaiced asymmetrically on the wall, create the sense of looking through her sketchbook or at her bedroom wall.
Baxter spent the summer creating prints of leaves, bark and other natural forms in a wide spectrum of color., the artists depict several large and small leaves with meticulous attention to detail and metallic paint colors.
Livingston experimented more with nature photography and sculpture during his time on Kent Island.
Livingston's photography of foliage and wild life on the island reflects careful attention to detail and precision. One particularly fine piece intricately displays the burning of one of his sculptures, where blazing orange fire separates thin pieces of plywood from soft grey ashes.
"I credit the island and the materials there...it was sort of a war on entropy in that all the materials were here on the island and it was my job to find them and organize them...I owe this whole project to that place," said Livingston.
Baxter took advantage of the island's remoteness, seeking solitude in the early morning.
"In the morning I'd wake up and work right away...sometimes I wouldn't talk to anyone so I could stay in that raw state and not be affected by other's moods," said Baxter.
Despite their independent work, the two artists collaborated on a major project, an intricate and multi-layered labyrinth, a meditative maze of rocks in which individuals may find peace and relaxation by the sea.
Baxter described the efforts to create the labyrinth as tiring and grueling.
"We literally hauled rocks in backpacks up to a spot on a sheltered hill on the side of the sea, facing a panoramic view of the ocean," she Baxter.
Livingston agreed manual labor was exhausting, but the hard work piad off.
Building the labyrinth "was how we got to know each other better. We'd work hard, then hang out, and get to know each other's creative ideas," he said.
"Island Bound" will be on view for the rest of September.