A new group exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum explores the complex relationships between humans and nature, challenging our perceptions of consumption and aesthetics in the natural world.
In the group exhibition ‘Sustenance & Land‘ at the Elmhurst Art Museum, land serves as a mirror reflecting memory, migration, appetite, and the uneasy balance between reverence and consumption. The show brings together six artists who explore the ambivalent relationships between aesthetics and place.
The Feedback Loop Between Land and Culture
The artwork in ‘Sustenance & Land’ closest to the landscape photographs of Joseph Jachna and Michael Tropea is Tomiko Jones’ haunting Rattlesnake Lake, a series of images captured at a former Indigenous site that was deforested and turned into a town for American settlers before being flooded and used as an overflow reservoir for Seattle. The photos show a single woman standing in the lake and on the shore amidst dozens of massive severed tree stumps. Jones deliberately evokes Western landscapes and the narrative of Manifest Destiny, but the images are not the ‘before’ of a pristine, untouched land ready for exploitation. They are the ‘after’—a place that shows the scars of being used, consumed, and used again.
Consumption as a Natural Part of Artmaking
Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman’s Processed Views are also directly in conversation with the landscape tradition. Using the work of photographer Carleton Watkins as an inspiration and jumping-off point, they photographed diorama landscapes created from Froot Loops, candy, and Doritos. The resulting images are hyper-saturated, surreal alien landscapes that are simultaneously repulsive and seductive. While their work critiques the exploitation of nature for aesthetic purposes, it also acknowledges the natural part of artmaking.
An Alternative Perspective on Consumption
Claire Pentecost’s Our Bodies, Our Soils is a multi-tiered installation of apothecary bottles filled with soil—mostly from Chicago gardens, with outliers from as far away as Georgia and Panama. The artist sees a continuum between the health of our soil and the health of our bodies, and presents soil as a kind of medicine. In this work, consumption is not just destruction but also an act of participation in a natural world that humans observe but are also part of.
Landscapes of Belonging
Chunbo Zhang’s Food Treasure series juxtaposes greasy American foods with Chinese containers and imagery. Her paintings position her as belonging in Chicago and China by framing her as a consumer in one place and a creator in the other. This work is not about representing nature but about the way we belong to land, food, and culture.
The Show’s Message
The exhibition ‘Sustenance & Land’ makes visible the feedback loop between land and culture, showing how what we take from the earth becomes what we make—and remake—in art. It invites us to consider our relationship with nature as complex and multifaceted, rather than binary or simplistic. By exploring the ambivalent relationships between aesthetics and place, the show encourages us to think critically about consumption and its role in our lives.
The exhibition ‘Sustenance & Land‘ is on view at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois through April 27.
Doritos is a brand of tortilla chips introduced by Frito-Lay in 1964.
The first flavor, Toasted Corn, was launched at the New York World's Fair.
In the 1970s, Doritos became a popular snack with the introduction of Nacho Cheese and other flavors.
Today, Doritos is available in over 40 countries worldwide and offers a range of flavors, including Cool Ranch, Fiery Habanero, and Blazin' Buffalo.
Froot Loops is a ring-shaped breakfast cereal produced by Kellogg's.
Introduced in 1963, the colorful loops were designed to appeal to children.
The original flavors included orange, red, yellow, green, and purple.
Today, Froot Loops are available in several countries worldwide and come in various flavor combinations.
According to Kellogg's, over 400 million boxes of Froot Loops are sold annually.
The cereal is made from corn flour, sugar, and food coloring.
