Luftwerk

A Summer Journey and Color Writing     
Luftwerk—Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero–Chicago, IL

 
 
Luftwerk Duo

A Summer Journey

Medium: Mixed media

Location: Joutras Gallery, Regenstein Center

Artist statement: A Summer Journey is an installation that captures fragments of the landscape we inhabit. The work is an attempt to imagine a time when prairie land occupied two-thirds of the midwestern landscape, when it was expansive and rich in biodiversity, a holistic interconnected ecosystem, with healthy soil, abundant flora, and myriads of bees and butterflies. We think of this as a practice of re-finding—reflecting on what was and can be again.

Collaborating Scientists:

 
Luftwerk Making Art
Luftwerk Making Art
Luftwerk Art
Luftwerk Art
 
A Summer Journey
 

Color Writing

Medium: Backlit digital print, transparencies

Location: Visitor Center

Artist statement: How is nature’s palette composed? Is there more to the colors we perceive in nature? The scientific process of chromatography—Greek for “color writing”—inspired this artwork. Here, prairie grass, seemingly a single color, reveals component pigments: green chlorophyll and orange and yellow carotenoids. Look up and around—patterns of color appear like abstract watercolor paintings, transforming the Visitor Center into a canvas for visible and hidden prairie hues. Experience nature’s palette—every shade, tone, and tint—in the Garden’s Dixon Prairie. Ecologists work through the seasons to restore this important habitat.

Luftwerk Art
Luftwerk Art
Luftwerk Art