Anthropocene | Ashley Eliza Williams | The Cyclical Glow | Blanca Guerra-Echeverria

Two celebrated CU Boulder alumna probe the natural wonder and unnatural forces at play in the world today.

Ashley Eliza Williams: The Anthropocene Project. For several years, Ashley Williams' geologic paintings have taken the form and presence of naturalistic phenomena. This latest chapter in her ongoing Journal of Experimental Geology shifts her perspective to representing rocks as unnatural artifacts floating within a state of ecological reverie. Her vibrant paintings are based on hundreds of photographs she took of limestone formations in Germany and scholar's rocks in China. The paintings, she writes, reference a future geology: extractions from the Anthropocene "scar" caused by human industry, agriculture, and war. Williams visualizes those traces abstractly through synthetic color: acidic oranges, plastic blues, chemical reds, and radioactive violets. Assuming the role of stratigrapher, she then "excavates" her own paintings and presents her findings as data in the form of painted core samples whose striations represent imagined geologic and environmental history. These imagined core samples are presented as works on paper depicting uniform strips of color referencing as Williams suggests, color-field painting with their glow and halo-like effects.

Williams' show at Goodwin Fine Art is influenced by an experience she had while traveling, when she stumbled upon something "astonishing and beautiful in a dark and unexpected place." She states that her goal is to re-create that experience of discovering "a small bit of wonder and light in the darkness."

Ashley Eliza Williams is a painter and interdisciplinary artist currently living in North Adams, MA. Her work is informed by environmental concerns and a desire to study and build relationships with non-human beings like minerals, animals, storms, and trees. Williams graduated with an MFA in Painting from CU Boulder in 2013 and was a RedLine artist-in-residence 2014-15. In 2017 she attended artist residencies in Germany, Thailand, China, and The United States. Williams' work is exhibited nationally and internationally. This is her second solo show at Goodwin Fine Art.

Blanca Guerra-Echeverria: The Cyclical Glow. Echeverria's ceramic sculptures probe dysfunctional genetics and the cultural expectations of family reproduction. Her biologically-infused works suggest stages in the development of the human embryo and a natural world out of balance. Guerra Echeverria's sculptures allude to joyous hopes and deep fears surrounding reproduction and child bearing. Combining abstraction with scale, her work embraces an aesthetic language that is "romantic, stimulating and beautiful" to create "a way to contemplate hope, fear, and longing." "By creating works that attempt to fill my void," she writes "I translate my fears into optimism."

Blanca Guerra Echeverria received her BA and MA in Ceramics from California State University Northridge and her MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder. She has exhibited work nationally in multiple galleries, museums, and permanent collections, some of which include Hyperlink Gallery in Chicago, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, The American Museum of Ceramic Art in California, Reese Gallery in St. Louis, the Kansas City Museum in Missouri, and the CU Art Museum in Colorado. She recently concluded a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Adams State University in Alamosa, CO. Currently she resides in Danbury, CT.