Sprowls Hall is hosting a dual art exhibit in the Kipp Gallery for artists Elaine Quave and Jillian Dickson.

The showing of Pushing Petals runs from Oct. 8 to Nov. 1.

Both artists wanted to examine the complexities of the cycles of birth and death as well as highlight the numerous connections and similarities between the anatomy of the human body and structures found often in nature.

The driving idea behind the art was that we as a species are permanently connected to nature. The show is meant to exhibit how dependent we are on the ecosystems around us to sustain our lives. The art is meant to drive the mind toward the recognition that nature will always be vital to our survival.

Pushing Petals fuses the anatomy of the human body with structures in nature, such as plants and insects, and the work seeks to dissolve the imagined divisiveness we have assumed when it comes to our connection, or lack thereof, with the natural world.

This exhibit is a visual representation that humanity and nature are not separate entities at all, but one single unit.

Quaves works in the show consist of ceramic sculptures that depict interesting fusions of plant anatomy and human anatomy. She used porcelain human bones to simulate certain plant structures and to communicate how closely connected the cycles of life and death are.

Quaves works in the exhibit also remind the viewer to

acknowledge the many negative impacts we are having on our

environments and calls to mind the environmental losses, the losses of true biodiversity and how the age we are living in has been termed the Anthropocene, or the age of man, known to be characterized by the devastating impact human actions have caused to the planets natural processes and habitats.

Dicksons art in the exhibit is meant to remind the viewer of the female body and the incredible things it is capable of.

Dicksons works are illustrations fusing images of human organs, flowers, ribbons and creatures such as butterflies and birds to connect the female body with wild nature. The drawings are meant to depict the female body alongside natural processes such as the blooming of flowers to connect the two entities of human and nature and transform them into a single whole.

Dickson uses classic imagery of the female body being fragile and beautiful by creating blooming and budding flowers, the exquisite delicacy of butterfly wings and flowing, floating ribbon. She pairs these gentle features with contrasting images of starkly veined tissue, thick taught ropes colored with almost-violent shades of reds and purples and images of placentas to drive home the strength of the female bodys capabilities, despite the societal expectations for how a female body is to look. Her works remind the viewer of innate female strength and resilience and how nature is forever pushing onward in its infinite cycles.

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Art exhibit fuses human anatomy with nature | Culture - Indiana University The Penn Online