End to End: Cape and Island Artists and the Land

JUNE 20th – SEPTEMBER 3rd

End to End: Cape and Island Artists and the Land

The hooked shaped peninsula that forms Cape Cod has appealed to artists for well over two centuries. How the topographical and geological character of Cape Cod informs artists who make their home here is the exhibition theme for summer 2023. The land that makes up Cape Cod’s Barnstable County is relatively young in geological terms. Glacial movement that began over 25,000 years ago is evident today by Cape Cod’s diverse landscape consisting of outwash plains, moraines, kettles, and knolls. These landforms are grown over with ever-changing landscapes: forest to pasture, marsh, and bog, and of course sand dunes, all punctuate Cape Cod.

End-to-End will feature artists from every one of the fifteen towns of Cape Cod and three from the islands. Visual artists are inspired by the land as much as they are by the sea on the Cape. As light and color continuously change, even day to day, the natural landscape offers artists a rich visual feast twelve months a year. The selected artists reflect on their habitats and plants – scrub pine to boreal forests – granite to sand inform their vision and language. The artists have been selected because of their focus on their immediate landscape, making the landscape their muse.

Dunes, cedar swamp forests, heather and poverty grass windswept hills populate much of the outer Cape imagery, marshes, bogs, pine barrens, rock mounds and ledges are no less popular among artists. The constancy of ocean waves and the patterned pronouncements left on the sand is a technical feat to capture, making the wave yet another muse.

The works on view will be abstract or faithfully representational, and in all instances informed by the land’s distinctive geology, topography, plant matter, or other natural element. The curatorial objective is to celebrate the rich geological history of the area, showcasing the unique habitats that extend from Provincetown to Bourne, and offshore on the islands. In addition to the art on view, concern for the natural and unnatural threats to the land such as, leveling woodlands for industrial developments, erosion, and the effects of changing climate on the natural resources will be addressed.

This exhibit is supported in part by grants from the Mass Cultural Council; and the Falmouth and Sandwich Cultural Councils, local agencies supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, the Woods Hole Foundation, and the Brabson Family Foundation.