‘Brush With Nature’

The current exhibition of photographs and sculptures by Barbara Roux at the Queens College Art Center focuses on nature, with the goal of increasing environmental awareness.
The installation “Brush With Nature” will be on display through Friday, December 21. This marks the first time that conservation artist Roux has had an exhibition at Queens College.
Roux, a resident of Huntington, has an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College and a BA in Communications and Creative Art from SUNY College at Old Westbury. She has long held an interest in the wilderness and nature, which has been influential in her work.
“As an artist dealing with issues of ecology, I am a hybrid,” Roux says in her artist’s statement. “My installation projects are influenced by my conservation projects to protect habitats and record incidents in natural history. My conservation efforts stem from my respect and fascination for the natural world.”
Roux’s work is done on Long Island. She said that she likes the mystery that exists within nature and looks for mysteries that she can investigate and try to understand. She also said that she likes to use real elements to engage people and that her photographs show people sites they might not have otherwise seen.
“The environment of the forest, meadow, seashore, and wetland is a powerful and little-appreciated resource to understanding our human world. Like all structured communities, the wilderness is in a search for survival,” said Roux, who is also a member of the Lloyd Harbor Village Conservation Board. “It is my hope that through my work people may become interested in the mysteries that are inherent in wild places. From interest, a desire to protect may follow.”
Roux has had exhibitions at many places, including the Alternative Museum, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Wave Hill, The Front Room Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery, Just Above Midtown/Downtown, Hillwood Art Museum, Real Art Ways, Silvermine Guild, Islip Art Museum, Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Natural World Museum, Heckscher Museum and the Discovery Museum.
Also, Roux has created and is providing funding for an emerging environmental artists award.
“Brush With Nature” is being co-sponsored by Queens College’s department of Biology and School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. It is part of the schools Focus the Nation participation, which is “a national education initiative aimed at raising awareness about climate change and global warming.”
The Queens College Art Center is located on the sixth floor of the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library on the Queens College campus, which is located at 65-30 Kissena Boulevard in Flushing. It is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays.
For more information, visit www.qc.cuny.edu/Library/art/artcenter.html or call 718-997-3770.