Opening Thursday, November 12, 2020, 6-8 p.m.

“I see both beauty and heartache in death, the inevitability of the circle of life.”

Tracy Linder’s sculptures and installations investigate the connections between humans, animals, plants, and machines, highlighting the struggles and husbandry involved in working the land. Using a wide array of materials, she represents the vulnerabilities, strength, joy, heartache, struggle, vulnerability, and resilience of the circle of life.

Working in series, her works embody work: gloves shaped by laboring hands, leather stitched around tree limbs, plant seeds bonded to animal bones, pods shaped from skin and fur. Linder’s art makes visible her nuanced understanding of the complex and fragile relationship between people and their food sources.

My art work is an extension of living close to the land. I grew up on a family farm and now live on the vast windswept prairie of south central Montana. In this place I am surrounded by the harsh realities of storms that can wipe out a year’s crop in minutes, by ranchers braving the blustery cold to rescue a newborn calf from certain death, by a community that will drop everything to help extinguish a fire, and a sense of isolation that can be both comforting and profoundly lonely. These experiences are my lifeblood.

I use a wide array of materials including animal collagen, leather, beeswax, resin and bronze to explore the endurable resilience inherent in our environment and the tenuousness of our relationship to it. Repetition amplifies content. It is slow work. I invite contemplation. 

— Tracy Linder

exhibition sponsors

Deborah Anspach & Dr. John Hanson
The Carolyn K. Ennis Family Living Trust
Barb Skelton
Gordon McConnell & Betty Loos
Cenex Harvest States, Inc. (CHS)