Girl in the Garden | Danger in Paradise, a solo exhibition by Amie Potsic at Hot Bed & James Oliver Gallery
My work references the sensory experience of being within the forest while encouraging us to appreciate and preserve its future. Incarnate environmental explorations, my photographs and installations invite you to connect with your own perception of nature in a manner that is both intimate and enchanting. I focus on the beauty and mystery of the forest to share my sense of wonder, develop our connection to trees, and encourage environmental protections. Personal experience underscoring the urgency climate change, I draw attention to deforestation by creating visceral and cerebral connections to trees and the natural world.
Girl in the Garden: Danger in Paradise explores female agency, the wooded lifeblood of our planet, and the fate of humankind. After photographing my daughter in the lush forests of the northeastern United States, I traveled to Paradise, California and surrounding forests (located upwind from my extended family’s home) to photograph the complete devastation caused by the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history. Seeing what we should preserve and what happens when we don’t was sobering to comprehend. By introducing magical and narrative elements, to an otherwise gigantic and seemingly abstract problem, I approach the issues more intimately so we can see ourselves in the paradigm.