June 2011

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, Offers Works by Mary Edna Fraser and Orrin Pilkey

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, will present the exhibit, Witness Our Expanding Oceans, a comprehensive art and education exhibit created by artist Mary Edna Fraser and scientist Orrin Pilkey, on view from June 25 through Nov. 6, 2011.

Art inspires. Science educates. But what happens when those roles are reversed? Or better yet, combined? The exhibit will explore the major elements of global climate change and the greenhouse effect with an emphasis on melting ice and rising seas. It will feature approximately 60 dyed silk batiks, depicting aerial, satellite, and conceptual perspectives of our environment. These pieces, permeated with color, produce stunning panoramic effects. The silk cloths, colored by hand using a modern variation of an ancient dyeing technique, are every bit as dynamic as the landscapes they depict. The batiks illustrate important effects of global warming, with written interpretation from both Fraser and Pilkey.

The pioneering work of contemporary American artist Mary Edna Fraser has been collected and exhibited worldwide. Fraser works from her own aerial photographs and memories of flight as well as from satellite and space imagery. In 1994-95, she was the first woman to be honored with a one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The National Science Foundation and National Academy of Science have featured Fraser and Pilkey’s collaboration, as have Duke Museum of Art and Emory University. She has completed numerous public commissions, including batiks for the American Embassy in Thailand and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Orrin Pilkey is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology and Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines within the Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University. In addition to having written The Beaches are Moving: The Drowning of America’s Shoreline, Living by the Rules of the Sea, and Useless Arithmetic, Pilkey has coauthored and edited 36 books. His work is featured in publications such as New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Oceans Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and National Geographic. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Francis Shepard Award for Excellence in Marine Geology.

The mission of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of the environment in ways that emphasize the natural diversity of North Carolina and the southeastern United States and relate the region to the world as a whole.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 919/733-7450 or visit (http://www.naturalsciences.org/).

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