2020 Senior Exhibition Artists

Litter, 2020, Archival Pigment Print

Ryan Demeulenaere

Art + Design: Photography

Statement

My work begins with landscape photography. My first exposure to the idealized landscape was at a young age when introduced to my grandfather’s oil paintings. I’ve always been interested in nature and the outdoors, so through my past work, my only goal was to shape my own personal experience within nature that I found around me, for my audience to see. However, this approach has radically changed due to the current state of nature on Earth.

For my installation, I plan on exploring the effect that human interference has had on our natural surroundings and ecosystem. Pollution and climate change are extremely serious problems, which a good percentage of Americans haven’t experienced firsthand. I want to use my work to send a message and hopefully make the viewer question the effect we’re having on our planet and the longevity of its life.

I am using multiple projectors for this installation, projecting videos cycling through various scenes of both idealized nature as well as sublime and chaotic. As of now, I am utilizing anonymous videos as well as videos taken by myself. Some imagery showing idealized nature with others showing opposite of how nature is destroyed and diminished through pollution, fires, natural disasters, drone strikes, and other forms of human intervention. I want to show how drastically affected the ecosystems and environment have become