We are happy to share Ian van Coller’s recent press coverage in Western Art & Architecture: A Sense of the Sublime by Michele Corriel is noteworthy insight surveying recent works by the prolific Montana-based artist.
Ian van Coller’s extensive body of work examines the art of seeing, not merely observing but looking deeply at nature in regard to humanity’s time and impact on the planet. . . These images underline his interests in the idea of deep time, or an unimaginable length of time far beyond our human scale, often thought of as geologic time. - Michael Corriel
The article on Ian van Coller’s photographs and artist’s books is a good introduction to cherry-picked projects from nearly 2 decade long study on the contemplation of deep time, broadly collected under the title Naturalists of the Long Now. Ian van Coller has photographed subjects in remote landscapes that signify, compress, and represent a monumental sense of extended time. Such subjects have primarily been glaciers in the Arctic, Antarctic, North and South America, and Africa, and long-living species such as the Bristlecone Pine, mentioned in Corriel’s article.
We included one of van Coller’s Bristlecone images in our 10 year anniversary exhibition, Time in Two Directions. The Scheibreen #2 triptych, shown above, appeared in the print-article and our gallery exhibition of his Svalbard work. We also included a copy of an oversized hand made book, The Last Glaciers of Kilimanjaro in the Svalbard exhibition. In this video made at the gallery exhibition opening, Ian van Coller does a page-through, discussing his work and his preference for the drum-leaf book structure.
Van Coller is highly celebrated for his handmade artist’s books that deep dive into specific subjects. Scale, structure, and sequence might be cause to argue the books are the artist’s highest form of presentation. All bookplate images are available as limited edition pigment prints. The artist also executed a small number of overarching collaborations with climate change scientists who annotate photographs of their labs, equipment, samples, or field sites made by van Coller. These unique collaborative works carry the full weight of the umbrella title itself, Naturalists of the Long Now. One of such works, shown below, has also exhibited at the gallery.
Ian van Coller and Jenny McCarty
Mayflies and Caddisflies on the Gallatin River, 2018