PRESS RELEASE: AUGUST 25, 2023
Florida School of the Arts presents paintings by Jeremiah Jossim
"20th Century Blues Dam"
Florida School of the Arts presents “Portents Along the Watershed,” paintings by Jeremiah Jossim. The exhibit opens with a reception on Thursday, September 7 at 5:00 p.m. in the FloArts Main Gallery, located at the St. Johns River State College Palatka Campus.
The event is free and open to the public.
Jossim's practice speaks to a deep reverence for the American landscape, but also questions the privileges of recreation, tourism, and who has the right to explore and live alternatively in this country.
Paintings featured in the exhibit examine how the treatment of the water systems throughout the North American continent mirrors the larger western view on environmental stewardship.
According to the artist’s statement, Jossim’s paintings investigate the shape and the feeling of the land, exploring the landscapes’ psychological effect on our personal sense of place.
“Myopic by its nature; there is no real coexistence. All natural systems are made to work for the needs of the society regardless of the state of natural ecosystems,” Jossim said. “We see this peak in the mid-late 20th century with the catastrophic use of pesticides leading to the birth of the modern environmentalism movement, but while some change has occurred, the spectacle of the larger materialism of Western culture will not be stopped.”
This body of paintings looks at how the basic infrastructure of our watersheds has no foresight to its long-term effects on the environments they occupy. Dams are the most obvious representation of human intervention along our rivers whether they are hydroelectric giants or old mill dams they represent the same threat, dividing a once single ecosystem into two and not allowing fish to swim upstream nor river silt to flow down. Culverts are another structure that fundamentally alters a waterflow. By making a stream flow into a smaller pipe, juvenile fish struggle to swim upstream because of increased current and the animals that use the edges of the river as trails must attempt dangerous road crossings. Throughout these paintings, the structures are shown separated from the environments they occupy.
Jossim wants the viewers to feel their oddness, but also to begin pondering ways to construct our infrastructure in a way that is cohesive with the natural world and maybe begin to see that the land has its own inherent citizenship.
Jossim earned an MFA in painting from the University of Florida. He received his BFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design. He has participated in residencies at the Wassaic Project and the Hambidge Center. His work was recently published in New American Painting's South and MFA editions.
The exhibit can be viewed 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and during FloArts main stage performances through October 11.
Florida School of the Arts is located on the St. Johns River State College Palatka Campus and serves the entire state of Florida. FloArts is part of the academic and administrative structure of SJR State and awards associate degrees in acting, dance performance, musical theater, stage management, theater technology, graphic design/new media and studio art. For more information, call (386) 312-4300 or visit FloArts.
