About the exhibition:

Inspired by the relationship between humans and the natural world, Reclamation is an exhibition of work by artists Rebecca Schultz and Dana Scott that features their first collaborative installation — photographs of local rock formations layered with drawings of abandoned stone structures. Through layering natural and man-made structures, Reclamation exposes the varied degrees of human interference within natural processes and illuminates the compositions that appear as they change, overlap, and intersect. Reclamation will open to the public by appointment at Da Vinci Art Alliance on Wednesday, September 16th, 2020 and will also be available online as a 3-D virtual experience. 

Rocks span geologic time, while human-built stone structures represent a mere blip. Reclamation features imagery of natural rock formations and human-built structures derived from the same stone, illustrating the interaction between man and nature through the manipulation of geology. Both Rebecca Schultz and Dana Scott have been exploring this relationship for years — Rebecca has studied changing rock formations from the Wissahickon to Ireland, Iceland, and France while Dana has concentrated on the entropic beauty of nature and addressing the relationship between humans and their environments.

Rebecca Schultz and Dana Scott met as undergraduates at Rhode Island School of Design, but it wasn’t until Rebecca returned to Pennsylvania that the artists realized the similarities in the resources and stimuli for their artwork. Both Rebecca and Dana share an interest in the beauty of the natural world and maintain a curiosity about our place in it. Reclamation will include the first collaborative installation by the artists, with individual works by the two artists also on view. 

About the Artists:

Rebecca Schultz is a multi-disciplinary artist and arts facilitator/educator who’s work is inspired by the natural world. The imagery of her work sits in the liminal space between the abstract and representational, offering an indication of natural form without explicitly depicting it. There is protean ambiguity that mirrors the mystery of nature. Rebecca grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 years before relocating to Elkins Park in 2016. Her creative practice includes painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage; participatory installation and public art projects; and performance. She has exhibited her work at Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Site: Brooklyn, Montgomery County Community College, InLiquid @ East Market, NoBa Artspace, Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia Sketch Club, Schuylkill Environmental Center, Mural Arts, 3rd Street Gallery, Perkins Center for the Arts, and MarinMOCA.

“For the last several years, my primary focus has been rock formations, from as close as the Wissahickon and as far as Ireland, Iceland, and France. I have recently been making a series of work based on stone structures, inspired by the millennia-old relationship between humans and rocks. In February 2019, I went to Ireland for an artist residency, and was fascinated to observe this history all around me, from stone circles, which date from 2000 BC, to beehive huts constructed in the 8th-12th centuries, to churches, houses, walls, and other structures built since then. In many cases, plant life has begun to grow between the stones, drawing them back to the natural world from which they came.” — Rebecca Schultz

Dana Scott is an artist who’s work is rooted in natural processes, geological formations, and the varied degrees of human interference within them. She is inspired by the beauty of commonly unnoticed details. The work begins as a compositional sketch in the form of a photograph, and often goes through a series of translations and transformation to re-present itself in other forms.. She has shown her work at DVAA, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Drexel University, Montgomery County Community College, East Alcove Gallery@The International House, Drawing Rooms Gallery, Jersey City; Cheltenham Center for the Arts, The Icebox Space, Rhode Island School of Design, Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania State Capitol Building, Painted Bride Gallery, Patrick Henry College, Louis L. Redding City/County Building, Wilmington; and Ledebour Palace Gardens, Prague, Czech Republic.

“My work focuses on translations of natural form based in aesthetics, exploration and composition. It is about discovery, simplicity, and awareness of detail. The work references the interaction between man and nature, both conflict and harmony, through a compositional play on organic and manipulated form. Through rhythm, pattern, and structural balance the work embraces the entropic beauty of nature, while alluding to the discord between humans and the environment in which they live.” — Dana Scott