Reimagining the Intersection of Art and Environment
Exploring Natural & Repurposed Materials
Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, WA, 2024
This exhibition highlights Jyoti Duwadi’s art that calls attention to Earth’s beauty and the precarious relationship between humans and the environment. The artist works with natural elements and discarded objects, including sanding belts marked by the trees of Pacific Northwest forests. Using multi-colored earth and shilajit, an Ayurvedic medicine, he transforms this industrial material into sculptures and paintings.
Jyoti’s works in beeswax reflect the myriad ways that functional objects can be changed into new identities and contexts for discovery. The artist accentuates both the elegance of this aromatic substance and the value of throwaway items for aesthetic reuse.
For this exhibition, Jyoti has created a contemplative site-specific installation that spotlights the gallery’s iconic fireplace. He integrates hand-made vessels from Nepal displaying earth with redwood and palm-frond sculptures. This work complements Jyoti’s project in Webster’s Woods Sculpture Park, where he transformed an old growth tree snag into a memorial for former director Jake Seniuk.
Experimentation, chance, and a meditative approach to creativity guide Jyoti’s work. The balance and harmony that he strives for in his art becomes a vehicle to help others find peace within themselves and the natural world.