Viz City interviewed Christopher St. John on Monday, March 11 for a broadcast date of Wed. March 20, 2019
Maude Kerns Art Center Presents “Singing the Animal, Singing the Earth: Shelly Fredenberg & Christopher St. John”
Exhibit Dates: February 22 - March 27
You’re listening to Viz City, KLCC’s Arts Review program. I’d like to introduce artist Christopher St. John, who with co-creator Shelly Fredenberg, has a remarkable show of paintings, drawing and sculptural visions of the animal world up at Maude Kerns Art Center called “Singing the Animal, Singing the Earth.”
"We wanted to create a body of work that was around E.O. Wilson’s call for artists to come and colonize the sciences. I read his book Half-Earth, and I was really taken with his passion and I was really taken with his connection to artists."
Christopher and his co-creator Shelly Fredenberg were intrigued with the idea that artists could could make people feel strongly about issues such as habitat loss, extinction events in order to galvanize more action. The first thing you see upon entering the gallery space is ten foot rabbits--why rabbits?
"So they’re all listening rabbits, and it all has to do with listening, and it’s a sly way for me to tell people they need to pay attention to the world better, maybe through their hearing. Listening, I think, is a much different way of connecting with the world, and I love it that rabbits have such exquisite hearing, they have such beautiful ears--even listening so far as into the cosmos.
“Singing the Animal, Singing the Earth” closes March 27, so you still have a few days to see it. Bring a child or teen and your own sense of curiosity and wonderto see the rabbits, a whole wall of moths, snails crawling in surprising places--a gallery of joy.
See more about Christopher St. John and Shelly Fredenberg at the Viz City blog on KLCC.org.
Viz City is co-produced by Terry Way and Sandy Brown Jensen.
