THE ART & SOUL OF NATIONAL PARKS
Our National Parks contain some of the most beautiful land on the planet. So it makes perfect sense to invite artists to capture it in photos, paintings, sculptures, literatures, music, poetry and other art forms. More than 40 of the 59 US National Parks have established Artist in Residency programs that produce incredible works. They inspire us to visit, to see the artful landscapes in real life and compare them to to artists’ works.
Several parks, such as Acadia National Park, have recently announced their 2018 Artists-in-Residence.
Artist Charlie Buckley is a 2018 Artist in Residence at Acadia National Park.
Buckley is best known for his work inspired by the Southern landscape such as tree lines and the floodplains as well as scenes from cities like Nashville, Oxford, and Jackson. His show will feature 24 new paintings, including three from a relatively new series he began two years ago titled, “Stacked Houses.”
The paintings from Buckley’s “Stacked Houses” series were initially in response to the destruction from the 2014 tornado that wrecked the artist’s hometown, Tupelo, Mississippi, but the narrative has since evolved. The paintings are similar conceptually and compositionally – stacked houses of varying architectural styles montaged to create a monolithic structure — to the original paintings, but have become larger in scale and more complex.
Buckley has also enhanced some of the compositions with patterned borders that mimic textile design. The paintings are commentary on climate, class, and the domestic environmental landscape.
Artist Mariah Reading has recent Artist in Residencies Zion National Park and Denali National Park.
“My art reflects the landscapes that surround me,” Reading says. “I am interested in the interactions I have with nature and how these experiences potentially speak more broadly to how humans connect with the outdoors today. I am constantly questioning whether I am separate from my environment or integrated within it.”
Reading’s Recycled Landscapes explores waste by working with recycled materials found in National Parks and other landscape environments. She visits National Parks and gathers trash, sculpts it to create a “canvas,” and paints the scene where the trash originated onto the trash itself. So far she’s collected trash from Acadia, Rocky Mountain, Arches, Zion, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Pinnacles, Channel Islands, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Saguaro, Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, Big Bend, Petrified Forest, Yosemite, and Denali National Parks.
Photographer Kah-Wai Lin was also awarded Artist-in-Residence at Petrified Forest National Park.
Originally from Malaysia, Lin started working with photography when he was 15 years sold, but he attended medical school in Ukraine and graduate school in Sweden, before pursuing his passion for fine art landscape, travel, and architectural photography, starting in 2012.
Now based in New Jersey, Lin has received over 40 international distinction or honor titles, conferred by photographic societies around the world. He has received over hundred awards at national and international photographic contests and exhibitions, including many gold medals and Best-of-Show Awards.
“I have always been in love with nature,” says Lin. “I wanted to capture the beauty of nature in ways that preserve the spirit arising from the scene,” he explains. “Since I moved to USA, I have been fascinated by the unique American landscapes that have now become my main source of inspiration.”
Kah-Wai Lin Photography, LLC specializes in photography education, exhibition and magazine publishing. Lin is also the editor-in-chief of Lightscape Vision Magazine and serves in leadership positions at the Photographic Society of America and Global Photographic Union.
To see more of Lin’s magnificent work, check out his website and Facebook Page.
Matt Tucker is a self-taught landscape and travel photographer based in Kansas. He has traveled extensively throughout North America.
Tucker's artwork is currently represented in fine art galleries in Alaska and Kansas, and has been exhibited in North Carolina, Montana, Arizona, Alaska and Kansas.
Tucker was awarded a National Park Service Artist Residency to focus on the intimate, close-up details of the ancient landscape of Petrified Forest National Park.
To view more of Tucker’s work, visit his website, his Facebook page, and his Etsy shop.
“I am a photographer of all things beautiful,” says Tucker, “but I am particularly drawn to nature's intimate details. Seeking these small, often-overlooked features provides me the opportunity to walk quietly and mindfully with my camera.”
Tucker takes care to notice beauty in all places, and takes the time to absorb what he considers to be “the infinite beauty everywhere.”
Award-winning photographer Camille Seaman was invited to be an Artist in Residence at Denali National Park, in Alaska. She strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.
While Denali is known for its magnificent wild animals, Seaman has also documented her newly forged love affair with the parks non-wild residents -- its beloved husky dog troupe.
Denali is the only national park in the U.S. to use canine rangers on its millions of acres. The National Park Service has operated a sled dog program here since 1922.
“My time in Denali rewarded me with peaceful solitude, happy dogs and amazing vistas,” says Seaman. “The images I made during my residency are just the start of what I know will be a lifelong love affair with the park.”
A TED Talks Senior Fellow and Stanford Knight Fellow, Seaman’s photographs have been featured in National Geographic and TIME magazines. Watch Camille's TED Talk.
Check out this video about Seaman’s mission to capture Denali’s changing landscape and ecosystem.
Artist Glenn Rennell was also awarded status of Artist-in-Residence at Petrified Forest National Park. Rennell, a native of Maine, brings his beautiful landscape painting to this magnificent iconic park.
“I think of landscape painting as a dance with place and time as my partners,” says Rennell. “It is a search for visual form that, I hope, may express the spirit of place and a sense of the present that looks both to the past and future.”
Rennell is drawn to those places that stir a sense of awe and the sublime. His interpretations of the Park’s landscapes are contemporary and fresh rather than being overly picturesque and sentimental.
Rennell studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Fort Wright College [BFA 1975], and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst [MFA 1978].
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