Happy Earth Week!

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, the Daily Palette is celebrating earth-friendly art and literature all this week. We are honoring Iowa-connected artists and writers who show respect for our planet through their work.

KRISTEN DEGREE
Beneath the Pavement pt. 1, digital video assemblage (link provided below), 2012

Kristen DeGree was raised in North Dakota, giving her a lifelong fascination with agriculture, horizon lines, and extreme weather events. She received a BA in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts from the University of Washington in 2008, and worked at Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York before coming to Iowa in 2010. She has an MA in printmaking from the University of Iowa, and is currently an MFA candidate in the UI Intermedia program. She has completed artist residencies with Elsewhere Artist Collaborative in Greensboro, North Carolina and Cabin-Time at Wilderness State Park, Michigan. She is currently in love with prairie, video art, and language of the future.

Kristen writes this about her art:

"My work focuses on investigating perceptions of culture and nature— understanding our surroundings as constructed in numerous webs of ecology, and how they extend to issues of labor, industry, and food production. How do these spaces intersect? How do we live out these connections?
I am interested in the process of art making as a mode of inquiry, and as a framework for poetic ways of conveying information. My artistic practice is research-based, but also moves across disciplines, including printmaking, video, sound, writing, and social practice, allowing for multiple entry points and ways of seeing."

About Beneath the Pavement pt. 1:

"This is an assemblage of clips and sounds from a remnant prairie in Rochester Cemetery, Rochester, Iowa, a reconstructed prairie near Solon, and a street intervention with walnut ink in Iowa City. Inspired by the knowledge that prairie roots still exist below the surface of Iowa soil, Beneath the Pavement explores the utopian concept of the return of the prairie as well as the reappropriation of the Situationist slogan 'Sous le pavés, la plage!'"

Kristen DeGree's website

Link to Beneath the Pavement pt. 1