Northern Waters, by Massachusetts-based artist Phyllis Ewen, is a series of sculptural drawings looking at water as “a life force that resist being controlled.” Ewen builds her 3D images by scanning maps, charts and photos and then cutting them and building them into layers, adding paint and text, most recently in puzzle-piece shapes.
Ewen’s work explores the ways in which “life-giving waterways have been contested, diverted, polluted, and exhausted by human intervention.” In the case of Northern Waters, the oceans and glaciers are being profoundly reshaped, not by the obvious interventions of dams and agriculture, but by the effects of human-caused global warming.
Some of Ewen’s sculptural drawings are included in a global-warming themed exhibition called Thaw, at the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City, NY, through April 6. You can see lots more of her work at her website.
The Finch and Pea 