After the Burn. Konza Prairie Drawing

Erin Wiersma's "Konza Prairie Drawings" are abstract portraits of the hilly grasslands of the Konza Prairie in Kansas. Nature with all its elements is both the subject and the creator of the works. The American artist appears as the medium, pulling, lifting and beating paper over the earth in a performative act. The previously burned soil is made fertile again by controlled fires, providing Kansas State University with information about the ecosystem and climate fluctuations in the prairie.
Erin Wiersma's artistic practice grew out of an interest in the history of the prairie as a place of its former inhabitants, its flora and fauna. Her work expresses a deep connection to the land and her sculptural conception of paper, also a highly combustible material. The paper is brushed or rolled over the freshly burnt grass and thus continuously adds imprints of nature, which come together as a moving frottage of the landscape. Only in the final state does the artist conceive her works as two-dimensional fragile works on paper, which are covered with strongly condensed lines in grey, black, green and earth tones. The all-over principle of lines, traces and scratches is an expression of the vastness of the landscape in which they are created. In their complexity, Wiersma's works on paper achieve a remarkable pictorial depth. They have absorbed the power of the soil, its history and capacity for renewal.
A catalogue of the same name will be published to accompany the exhibition.

After the Burn

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