Dialogues with Mother Earth: The Murals Talk Climate Change, Drawing to Save the Planet, Coming to the IMAS

Texas Border Business

- Advertisement -

McAllen, TX – Ten large-scale murals by international artist, Erica Daborn, will be on exhibit beginning this July 13 at the International Museum of Art & Science (IMAS). Special events around the opening include a charcoal workshop with Erica Daborn and a special lecture and opening reception. Murals are on the rise in the McAllen art scene, and the IMAS is bringing this exhibition to McAllen as an enlightenment piece that is also a social commentary on climate change. 

The opening weekend of Dialogues with Mother Earth: The Muralswill include several opportunities to meet the exhibiting artist, Erica Daborn. Intermediate artists can sharpen their drawing skills at a charcoal workshop on Friday, July 12, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at the IMAS hosted by Daborn. Inspired by her charcoal murals, participants will then create a large-scale drawing. The workshop is $15 and should be registered for in advance as seating is limited.

On Saturday, July 13, Dialogues with Mother Earth: The Muralswill open at 1:00 p.m. to the public in the Clark Gallery of the IMAS. Here visitors can feast their eyes upon the murals that Daborn has created over the past decade. At 2:00 p.m. the exhibit opening reception will include a special lecture by Erica Daborn. The exhibit will be comprised of 10 large scale murals. Her medium is charcoal over acrylic ground on canvas.

- Advertisement -

Erica Daborn’s large-scale charcoal drawings provoke reflection on the relationship between our 21st–century societal values and the ways in which they have contributed to the degradation of our environment. The artist states, “It is aimed specifically towards young people, as they are the ones about to inherit a global disaster.”

Art critic Viridiana Gutierrez Tejeda states, “Erica Daborn uses art as an educational and socially transformational tool. Her goal is to generate positive change by capturing the attention of the public in unconventional ways. Each of her works in Dialogues with Mother Earth becomes a channel of communication that shares and analyzes the relationships between ourselves and the natural world that surrounds us.”

The murals explore, in a non-alarmist, story-book manner, those aspects of contemporary living that have impacted the environment including consumerism, depletion of natural resources, the effects of the meat industry, disposable plastics, genetic modification, etc.

“Her scenes are made up of ambiguous characters that blur race, culture, and borders; we position ourselves as spectators in the same space and time where we are all equal,” continues Tejeda. “We are made aware of our responsibility towards the problem, but at the same time made to realize we are also victims of an uncontrolled system.” 

- Advertisement -

Dialogues with Mother Earth was organized through the generous support of The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Berkshire Taconic Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Corporation of Yaddo and The New York Foundation for the Arts, Fiscal Sponsorship Program.

Dialogues with Mother Earth: The Muralswill be on display from July 13 through January 5, 2020. Admission is free for IMAS members and included with the price of regular admission for the exhibit and accompanying events.

- Advertisement -