"What we observe is not nature in itself,
but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Werner Heisenberg

"There is no more to beauty
than pleasure miscast as an objective property
of what happens to give us pleasure."
Walter Benjamin

"If Beauty does not exist in nature
why is nature so Beautiful?"
Craig Krull

Astrid Preston's work is always about the philosophy of perception, particularly with regard to beauty and nature. Is not beauty an abstract human concept that exists purely in our minds? Are we able to distinguish between the object and the sensation? Does our ability to think abstractly, an ability that we believe elevates us above animals, actually distance us from nature? Certainly, landscapes do not exist in nature either, they are artificial and exclusive outlines. In fact, the pixels in Preston's new work exemplify this by deconstructing beauty as an idea, and formally building a landscape. It is the persistence of these conundrums, and their exploration by the artist, that constitute the beauty of Astrid Preston's art.

A catalogue of the exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery is available. Concurrently, The Bakersfield Museum of Art is presenting a 30-year survey, Astrid Preston: Poetics of Nature, through March 24, 2018.



Rose-Lynn Fisher's The Topography of Tears is an examination of human tears through an optical microscope. During a period of loss, sorrow and change, Fisher began to wonder about the physical nature of her tears, what they looked like, and whether tears of grief, joy or laughter had differing characteristics. She found that her photographs, taken through a microscope, revealed "how the patterning of nature seems so consistent, regardless of scale." The images actually evoked a sense of place. Fisher observed that they are "like aerial views of emotional terrain. Though the empirical nature of tears is a composition of water, proteins, minerals, hormones and enzymes, the topography of tears is a momentary landscape...like an ephemeral atlas."

At the reception on Saturday, October 21st, Rose-Lynn Fisher will be signing copies of her new book, The Topography of Tears.

On view in the gallery office:

Kelly Berg
Images | Biography