Pictures (and nature) at an exhibition

Art professor and visual art program coordinator Claire Pope, M.A., MFA, is no stranger to her work – and its unique blend of art and nature – being recognized on a national or international scale. In late 2024, her painting “Often I am Permitted” from her recent series Alters was selected as one of 49 (out of 1500 submissions) to join the Coined in the South exhibition at the Mint Museum Uptown in Charlotte, North Carolina through April 27, 2025.

“I grew up on a small farm in Kentucky and was basically raised outside,” Pope shared. “So, even as a child, I always gravitated toward arts, creativity, nature and the environment. In college, I actually started out as an environmental science major, but I took one visual art class, and once I did, I couldn’t deny art was my path.”

After earning a master’s degree in art history, Pope worked for several years in galleries, but she remained drawn toward making and creating. In 2015 she followed that draw to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in studio art.

“I was in my 30s and had a baby, but I kept thinking I really wanted to be the person creating the work on the gallery walls,” she said. “What set me on that path to return to graduate school to realize my artistic practice was finally combining my love of nature and art. Once I melded those two together, I found my passion.”

Pope’s portfolio contains a wide range of media – painting, sculpture, photography, video – but one constant is the use of found objects and elements from nature. Seed pods and wasp nests appear in sculptures. Paintings are dotted with water marks through a collaboration with rain. An ongoing video project documents the cleanup of a brownfield site, formerly a furniture factory in Morganton, North Carolina.

“My work explores what I call the notion of ecstatic quietude and wonder found in nature in the present age. It’s a process of gaining understanding of who I am, who we are as humans, through connection to nature and expression through the arts,” Pope explained. “I’m constantly going outside, collecting natural matter, photographic images, written impressions. I take them into the studio, and with each body of work, I explore those ideas and feelings of wonder.”

The Alters series began in 2020, as Pope began meditating on the relationship between humanity and the natural world in the context of COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. At the same time, she had been experimenting with natural materials in new ways.

“I was feeling very confused and emotional about the state of the world, as we all were,” she shared. “I started doing these expressive, large scale paintings, but I was using my hands, feet and natural objects – rocks, for example – to apply the paint and wipe it off, and adding natural materials to the pigments, so I could see marks and fingerprints in the surface.”

Pope then framed the paintings with sculptural objects made from other natural materials and collaborated with her husband, a woodworker, to construct bent frames. The result evoked religious altar pieces from the past as well as non-traditional canvases in Modern Art. Alters refers to the altered states of the natural world, but Pope said the pieces also represent kind of spiritual offering.

“One of the things I discuss with my students as they’re beginning their path is that you’re not just an artist. You find your purpose within the arts, and we talk a lot about serving your community through the arts,” Pope explained. “For me that’s been environmentalism and projects that address the concerns of the world around us.”