Left to Right: Better Living Through Chemistry, Chernoble and All that Glitters.

Left to Right: Chernoble, All that Glitters and Oil Rig.

Oil Rig, 2009, oil, collage and iridescent pigments on rag paper, 30" x 22"

Left to Right: Occupant, Memorial and Better Living Through Chemistry.

Oil Rig, 2009, oil, collage and iridescent pigments on rag paper, 30" x 22"

All the Glitters, 2001, oil, collage and iridescent pigments on rag paper, 29" x 41"

Better Living Through Chemistry, 1991, oil on canvas, 42" x 54"

Chernoble, 2000, oil, collage and iridescent pigments on rag paper, 29" x 41"

Occupant, 2005, oil, collage and iridescent pigments on rag paper, 29" x 41"

Janet Culbertson

Possible Peril

January 12 - February 18, 2012
Reception: Thurs., Jan 12 from 6pm to 8pm

For more than four decades, Janet Culbertson’s paintings and drawings have been inflected with a passionate concern for our planet’s ecology. In her most recent series, Industrial Park, Culbertson re-imagines a future of disastrous consequences. By mixing mica and iridescent pigments into her paint the artist simulates the appearance of broken glass, mine tailings and oil spills. The resulting surfaces lend a lustrous yet threatening quality to her subject matters - jungles of twisted roads, acres of concrete cylinders, massive oil rigs and an unnaturally scorched earth. Primates often appear amidst these dark landscapes as poignant reminders of the many species we have threatened in striving for a rich future with little mind to sustainability.

Janet Culbertson is a pioneering eco-feminist artist. She attended Carnegie Mellon University and earned her Master’s Degree at NYU. She had her first solo exhibit in New York City in 1969. During the 1970’s Culbertson had four one-woman shows in New York City, received a C.A.P.S. NY state award and wrote and edited for Heresies magazine. Since that time, Culbertson has received grants from The Pollack-Krasner Foundation, The Vogelstein Foundation and The Puffin Foundation and has exhibited her work at such significant institutions as The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. Culbertson has work in the permanent collections of museums including National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C.; Hunterdon Art Museum, NJ; National Museo de los Ninos, San Jose, Costa Rica; Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Long Island Museum of Art, Stony Brook, NY; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; St. Petersburg Museum of Art, St Petersburg, FL; Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY and Islip Museum, East Islip, NY among others.