“Fusion of Landscapes,” a new art exhibition at the Larson Gallery in the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Student Center, explores the intersection of natural and technological environments.

The exhibit, which opened on March 16, features artwork by Meagan Marsh Pine and Nick Chatfield-Taylor. The media range from pixelated paintings to tinsel being blown by an electric fan to a video sourcing footage from the National Park Service and Google Earth.

“Fusion of Landscapes” is open until May 19.

Joy Quach, an arts and culture event planner at the gallery, said Pine and Chatfield-Taylor’s installations were chosen out of about 100 submissions by a selection committee. The committee paired their artwork together for the exhibit despite the artists not knowing each other prior.

Lindsey Butler, a gallery attendant, said the committee chose Larson for the exhibit because it is more spacious than other art galleries on campus and could best accommodate the installations. Larson also tends to feature more 3D exhibits to make the most out of the space, and “Fusion of Landscapes” interacts with all of the space offered in the gallery.

On top of the brick towers and wall photography showcased, Teagan Londo, another gallery attendant, said the exhibit is distinct because “it combines elements of audio and video, which we have not had very often.”

Meagan Marsh Pine

Pine, a lecturer of photography at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, said some of their installations were inspired by aerial photography and digital camouflage. Pine wanted to examine the relationship between the two and combine them when making their pixelated paintings featured throughout the gallery.

When creating this exhibit, Pine aimed to reference how landscapes have been built and constructed in society. They said they drew inspiration from visual histories and patterns in landscapes and twisted them to make people question the things they see and “how that positions them as viewers.”

“I was kind of building it off of this visual language that I have been creating,” Pine said. “I’m interested in this duality of real and unreal.”

Pine graduated from the University in 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism, art and interdisciplinary design, but said they didn’t develop their current style until graduate school. Pine’s work was more photo-centric in their undergraduate years, but they still consider photography to be the “backbone” of their work.

Nick Chatfield-Taylor

Chatfield-Taylor’s tinsel installations, which consist of three pieces of tinsel positioned throughout the gallery with varying amounts of air exposure, originally began as a “happy accident” while he was working on another project in his studio. Since he left the window open, the project began fluttering in the wind, and after, he started to experiment with air as a medium in his artwork.

By contrast, another piece by Chatfield-Taylor called “The Walked Triangle” features photos of a distant hill with a triangle path connecting three bushes. He walked this path daily for at least a month so he could see the path from far away.

“Grass is a worthy adversary,” he joked.

Chatfield-Taylor said Pine’s artwork is very “labor intensive,” while his is more “abstract,” but they both investigate similar concepts and ideas.

“I think Meagan and I are both exploring themes of repetition and the variety of monotony,” Chatfield-Taylor said.