The environment we live in now calls out to us in distress. As seasons come and go, the face of this earth is slowly getting disfigured and dysfunctional through our chosen paths of development and poor policies. Environmental art arises primarily from artists’ connection with nature. The vision of artists and the scope of art have evolved with time. In today’s world where one has the gift of free expression, we believe in using art for the cause of change and transformation.

Through art’s evolving consciousness, environmental artists can now adopt a front line stance to intervene and protect nature directly/indirectly.

If art matters to society, then environmental art should matter even more in these times of climate change and natural disasters. The physical and mental health of humankind ultimately depends upon the wellbeing of the planetary biosphere. This realization is the reason we are forming a community of artists who care deeply for the environment, which is also the inspiration for their art. (Call it activist art if you like!)

Environmental art is yet to become a powerful genre. Its obscurity has a lot to do with its seasonality and weak articulation of themes and subjects. There is a felt distance between this type of art and its audience. Exhibitions are few and do not stimulate lasting interest and concern among viewers for lack of a cogent theme and a call to unified action.

The Arteisch Earth Collective is an attempt to change this narrative through, building a community of conscientious artists who view the environment as a worthy artistic subject.

The collective will also provide a platform for the viewing, discussion and sale of environmental art. It will be a means to spread awareness of the state of the environment in India and an invitation to support various environmental causes).

Environmental art is a broad term that encompasses practices and movements such as earth art, land art, ecological art, sustainable art as well as conceptual art. These art forms primitively engage with, and represent the environment, emphasizing its beauty as well as disclose environmental/ climate issues.

One of the main characteristics of environmental art is that it changes with the seasons, as it is usually created for one particular place and cannot be moved. Such site specific works of art that maybe in remote areas lose touch with direct conversation with the audience. At times works may not even last longer due to natural conditions.

Snow Artist Simon Beck, creates landscape drawings and sculptures in snow and sand. His landscape drawings are crucially time specific as he creates massive land drawings by walking out the pattern in snowshoes. The works as a whole are comprehended from a bird’s eye point of view, which is difficult for a large group of people to see first-hand. With the help of drone shots, he collects archives of his work which are then circulated through media for the world to see.

Environmental artists help us not just to understand nature but also rethink the importance of exhibition space, places where art can happen and where it can exist. Even though we the viewers cannot experience such works of art first hand, their photographs, videos and other documented material that is later then exhibited in galleries and museums bridge the viewers and the art.

visual artists, writers, photographers, architects, farmers, cinematographers (any creative individual or group of people whose work is environmentally influenced)

When quizzed about the meaning of the name ‘Arteisch’ she says it was born in a moment of vacant imagination and does not mean anything in particular. The choice of the word also attests to the German classes she took while at school. For some reason the name stayed, possibly because of its inherent associations with art, or possibly because of its unusual and catchy cadence.