A Super Natural Experience: The Art of South Florida-Based Artist Cheryl Maeder
Kara Walker Tomé, Art Muse Lecturer
Cheryl Maeder has stated that her art, at its core, is about connection; to the environment, to the self, to each other, and with all life forms. The artist indeed manifests a tangible connectiveness between nature, the optical realm of an artwork and in turn the viewer of the work. She does this through a methodology of performing ephemeral yet powerful interventions in a landscape. It is a time-consuming process that involves location scouting, multiple levels of planning, on-site trials and errors with her eco-friendly materials, and lots of shooting, whilst hoping for the weather to cooperate and enhance her activities. All of this so she can capture a split second of time where all the elements come together in an aesthetically gorgeous photograph or short film.
To create works for her Super Natural series, Maeder chooses a specific environmental scene and taps into the frequencies of weather by releasing a burst of bright primary color (she keeps the material a mystery) that rides the air, creating effects that exist in real time for only a few moments as wind and gravity quickly moves, blows and then dissipates the color. During the brevity of their flight, these clouds of color coalesce, with changing density and opaqueness morph into flowing shapes. The effect introduces artistically formal elements into the compositions, resulting in a connective collaboration with nature.
These aesthetic additions to a landscape echo and then heighten similar qualities of artful elements and principles that nature creates on its own, but most often we take for granted as we live our daily lives. In real life, it takes purposeful looking to get to the place of seeing, and feeling, a deeper appreciation of what nature provides us. Through her art, Maeder makes visible the powerful energies at play on our planet, unseen by the naked eye, yet internally sensed when we are in a deeply felt state of the wonder of nature.
The artist’s photographs, short films and installations present the observer with a feeling that they are witnessing something profound, perhaps even from the beyond. And the stunning natural landscape we are beholding somehow feels even more phenomenal, as if a supernatural experience attuned us to what we already know deep inside, if only we would let the connectiveness of the universe be more present in our lives.
Maeder will be one of the artists present at our Hollywood, Florida program at the Art and Culture Center on September 23rd. If you are in the area and can attend you will hear directly from the artist about her work and be able to view the group exhibition of 70 South Florida artists.