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Return to: Mara Adamitz Scrupe

Artist Statement


For the past eighteen years, I have lived in rural central Virginia. From my home and studio, I have traveled nationally and internationally as a sculptor, an environmental artist and a visiting artist, and as a lecturer and educator. My artwork explores issues relevant to several disciplines including architecture, horticulture, agriculture, landscape architecture, and environmentalism.

My recent public site installations utilize custom-designed solar-power systems, combined with live, heirloom plants and environmentally threatened native plant materials to make self-sustaining organic gardens. These gardens require a source of electrical power for the illumination (grow lights) and other technical equipment which is integrated into each piece. The manufacture and use of fossil fuels, and the associated production of so-called "greenhouse gases" is a central theme in this and other landscape-oriented site work, as is the vital role played by plants in the food web, and the importance of conserving plant materials which serve the animal community and the natural environment as a whole.

In future installations, I will continue to investigate this intersection of nature and technology. On the one hand, I am interested in exploring the creation and consumption of bioengineered food plants in contemporary societies. On the other, I plan to move forward with my work involving renewable energy sources including the feasibility of wind generators and water power as producers of electricity, among others.

Long-term experience of rural life has heightened my awareness of the relationships between people and the land they live on. Traveling between my rural home and employment in cities, I've become convinced of the dilemma of urban people, disconnected from access to nature on a day-to-day basis. I believe that compelling experiences with land, animals, and natural phenomena provide a crucial emotional and physical connection with nature for all people. My work is also an attempt to help reestablish this critical spiritual connection between humanity and the efficiency, wildness, beauty and sensory delight of the natural environment through public projects that engage people in first-hand experiences with nature.

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