Air of the Ancients

Air of the Ancients
Featuring Angela Faris Belt, Natascha Seideneck, and Melanie Walker
The Center for Fine Art Photography in partnership with Artworks Center for Contemporary Art (Loveland) 
January 20 – April 1, 2023

Reception: January 20, 6 pm MST
Virtual Artist Talk: March 11, 2 pm MST

The air we breathe is the air of the ancients. Constants of air, dirt, fire, and water have cycled through natural processes for time immemorial. In recent times, two hundred years give or take, humans have invented and introduced previously non-existent materials, chemicals, nanoparticles, and forever chemicals that have irreparably changed the elements and the environment.

Angela Faris Belt, Natascha Seideneck, and Melanie Walker’s work explore nature and the continuum of what was, is, and most importantly, what will be. We are in an uncertain new era of imbalance that we have created and now struggle to bring back to balance.

While we continue to breathe the air of the ancients, most of us are questioning the future of the planet and ways of life, cycles of nature, and what we knew as constants that are no longer.

–Hamidah Glasgow

About the Artists:
Angela Faris Belt is a visual artist whose work studies relationships between humankind and the more-than-human world. Influenced by nature writers, a unique multi-cultural heritage, Buddhist philosophy, and a lifetime spent in nature, she uses photographic media because its physical makeup mirrors nature itself— sensitivity to light, energy and time, metallic and chemical interactions, viability and expiration—and its inherent ability to simultaneously record and infer. Angela’s work has been widely exhibited and is held in collections including Kaiser Permanente, Reynolds & Reynolds, the Crowne Collection, Chicago; and the Smithsonian Museum. She is represented by Michael Warren Contemporary Gallery in Denver. She is Program Chair of the Studio Art & Art History Departments at Arapahoe Community College.

Natascha Seideneck is from Germany, grew up in England and lives in Denver, Colorado. She holds an MFA from Tufts University and is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Metro State University of Denver. Natascha exhibits her work extensively and has produced numerous site – specific artworks, often collaborating with artists, designers, and architects. Her work is interdisciplinary, often engaging in experimental processes that integrate still and time-based visual technologies. In particular she is interested in how land is surveyed and surveilled within historical and contemporary contexts.

Melanie Walker has been a practicing artist for over 50 years. Her expertise is in the area of alternative photographic processes, digital and mixed media as well as large scale photographic installations and more recently, public art. She has received a number of awards including an NEA Visual Arts Fellowship, Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship and an Aaron Siskind Award. She taught at a number of universities and currently teaches in the Media Arts Area at the University of Colorado Boulder.