Artist takes journey to capture nature
OSU artist takes journey to capture nature

Oklahoma State University art professor Liz Roth grew up in New York City and didn't learn to drive a car until her late 20s.

"My idea of nature was a pigeon,” Roth said.

So it was quite an adventure last year when she drove through every state in the continental United States to photograph and then paint the vastness of nature.

The result of her journey was 100 small oil paintings of mountains, meadows, beaches and bayous; and a concern that landfills will overtake these landscapes.

The paintings are part of "America 101,” an art installation on display through Saturday at Untitled [ArtSpace] in downtown Oklahoma City.

Painted on small blocks of wood, and arranged in tidy rows along two walls, the paintings are in sharp contrast to the billboard image of a plastic water bottle on a third wall.

The water bottle represents the country's demand for mass-produced, disposable goods, Roth said. The billboard is large because the vistas are small — illustrating the power of commodity over the natural world.

"I had to go to Walgreens and I thought ‘What if somebody sees me? It goes against all my environmental practices,'” she said.

Roth says she tries to use humor to depict social concerns. She got the idea for "America 101” while creating a smaller, similarly themed installation in Japan.

Roth's current installation is part of Art 365, a traveling exhibit that celebrates the Oklahoma Centennial by showcasing the work of six Oklahoma artists given $10,000 grants by the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.

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