Art of Warning

Art of Witness

Mary Ciani

I was called to paint an Art of Warning a decade ago. My work radically changed in subject, medium, and palette as the world changed around us. As glaciers began to melt, and seas to rise, and Harvey swirled over a hot Gulf and slammed into Houston, I drew back focus from my usual work – intimate metaphors of lives lived in time, to a wider view: the life and death of the planet. I drew monochromatic Flood Drawings, and in blues and greens I painted Deluge Paintings of water, storm, and flood.

An Art of Witness later appeared, as what we once feared now came upon us. The black ichor of oil and the red blood of sacrifice flowed down vertical canvases in later Deluge Paintings, and in small drawings, Postcards from the Future. A few Fire Paintings required a new hot palette of cerise and yellow.

I have sought to cut through the noise and lies of pop culture to the heart of the matter: our survival of a petroleum-based civilization which created great wealth and comfort, but now melts ice, turbocharges weather, burns the earth, and kills the host planet. This is my subject.

What I see now. From my studio in Texas, I look out to a view of doves and cardinals, pond and bamboo forest, but see only deluge, oil, blood, and fire.

Deluge, Black Oil, Snowmelt, Shattering Rock, 4’ x 12’ Polyptych of four 4’ x 3’ canvases, Golden paints, 2020-2024