I am an artist, educator and environmental activist from New Orleans. My artwork explores what it means to live in a time of global warming with a collective uncertain future, and specifically what that means for those of us living in Southern Louisiana. My practice explores the historical legacies that got us here to help imagine new possibilities for a livable future. My work is specifically rooted in Southern Louisiana, where I live, as a microcosm of our shifting time.
Click here to see my CV, and check out my instagram, @studio.hnnh.chlw, or email me directly to inquire about work, hire me for an artist talk or workshop, or otherwise get in touch: hnnh.chlw@gmail.com
STATEMENT
We are living in the so-called age of the Anthropocene—the geological epoch marked by humans’ effect on our planet—in Louisiana, where the oil and gas industry is a major part of the state’s economy and culture despite our ever more vulnerable coastline.
I make work that connects fossil fuel extraction and plastic production to their roots in the white supremacy and capitalism that have fueled the exploitation of people and the landscape from the times of colonization and enslavement. My works draw viewers into an experience that bridges past and present with visions of the future ecosystems that might emerge from our culture’s detritus if we fail to change course.
I connect my message with my medium by divesting my work from fossil fuels as much as possible through my material choices, how I power my work and by not accepting fossil fuel funding. By working this way, I offer a slower, more intentional paradigm of engaging with our surroundings as an antidote to the short-sighted extractive consumption that has gotten us to this precarious moment.
In art pieces ranging from works on paper to large-scale installations, I bring together unlikely materials in combinations that are often beautiful; they draw viewers in to stay with the work that, on closer inspection, has a deeper burn that implicates them in our collective realities—challenging them to think critically about their place in this greater network as we co-evolve together. My work creates space to imagine what else could be possible now and beyond; it inspires viewers to think about what individual and collective changes are needed for a just transition from fossil fuels and plastic to ensure a livable future for our descendants.
BIO
I am an artist, educator and environmental activist raised and currently working in New Orleans. I received my BA from Brandeis University in 2009 and my MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016. I’ve exhibited widely around New Orleans and has shown around the country at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO; Dieu Donné, New York, NY; Asheville Museum of Art, Asheville, NC; Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN, and other venues. My work has been featured in the New York Times, American Craft, Hand Papermaking, Garden&Gun, BOMB, Hyperallergic, Burnaway, the LA Times, the Boston Globe and more. My work is held in the collections of the City of New Orleans and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. My work is included in two creative atlases by writer and activist Rebecca Solnit, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, co-authored with Rebecca Snedeker and Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, co-authored with Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. In 2021, I received the Monroe Fellowship Research Grant to create ink from fossil fuel pollution in collaboration with fence-line communities in Southern Louisiana. In 2022, I also received a Platforms Fund grant and a Puffin Foundation grant to support the fossil fuel pollution ink project. I am the 2022 South Arts Southern Prize winner as well as the South Arts Louisiana State Fellow.
