Adrien Segal: An Artist With Ecological Expression

By:Ryan Mudgett

Photo credit to ~ adrien segal art.design.data.sculpture © 2013 

Mirroring the scientific process artist Adrien Segal expresses brilliant works of art that display tales of places where humans and nature overlap. Her imagination and sculpting skills serve as a platform to narrate the invisible by telling a story of place that is intuitive, and serves as a natural history lesson for the viewer. Segal’s work is truly inspired by data visualization, natural phenomena, and long term scientific research.  Her creative form of sculpture accurately represents trends in water use, alluvial flow, tidal datum, and other water related topics . Striving to use her art as a universal form of communication she is successful in transforming information that reveals trends or patterns in history by depicting them as three dimensional forms (Segal, 2013).

After examining her work I begin to notice a slight shift in my perspective of the natural world and how it is painstakingly introduced to the masses. By taking decades of scientific data and expressing the numbers and trends in her sculptures, Segal transforms the complexities of science into a form that many can understand.  Her work not only steers clear from bland graphs and charts but also brought me to an Aldo Leopold statement that can be found in his Land Ethic:

Photography courtesy Aldo Leopold Foundation.

  “The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not. He knows that the biotic mechanism is so complex that its workings may never fully be understood.” Aldo Leopold

Segal’s art work expresses a firm push of creativity that begins to represent the complexity of certain biotic mechanisms and how they respond to anthropocentric world.  It is up to the curious individual to view her work with desire and the will to learn more about her thought process and message. In respect to Leopold we can only act ethically to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in, and Segal does just that with her art work (Leopold, 1970).

Here is a snippet of Adrien Segal's Art.  I was taken back by her piece "Snow Water Equivalent Cabinet". 

Check it out, she rocks!   > > > http://www.adriensegal.com/#!snow-water-equivalent-cabine/ct3d

Literature Cited

Leopold, A., & Schwartz, C. W. (1970). A Sand County almanac: with essays on conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books.

Segal, Adrien (2013) “Adrien Segal: Artist Statement” http://www.adriensegal.com/#!statement/cihc accessed July,2013 adrien segal art.design.data.sculpture © 2013