Personal and Social Views of Nature by Mel Watkin and Marie Bukowski

Nature remains our foundational experience in the face of the ever-expanding technological interpretation of it imposed by culture. 

The two artists, Mel Watkin and Marie Bukowski, present nature in both similar and contrasting ways. Their methodologies to art-making reveal their understandings of the internal and external workings of art, nature, and science. 

Watkin has said that she uses “...materials that come with a certain amount of baggage, imbedded history and automatic associations such as old road maps, pillowcases, lace and tea towels.” Watkin’s art takes the extrospective road.  

Bukowski has said that she has been “...filling notebooks with geometric and organic forms that eventually evolved into diagrams. This exploration has pushed me to arrive at the visual/intellectual issues that occupy me every day.” Bukowski’s art takes the introspective road. 

Mel Watkins is the former Director of the Public Policy Research Center Photography Project at UMSL, and Marie Bukowski is the former Director of the School of Art & Design at SIUC. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website