tranquility

by Casey Bennett

In Tranquility, Casey Bennett experimented by combining wax with traditional oil paint. The wax adds a translucent surface to the panel, giving a soft, hazy quality to the landscape. In the artist’s words, the picture captures “the silvery light of overcast skies that makes spring days ethereal.” Bennett aims to evoke the calming experience of interacting with nature. She specifically excludes the litter and debris she encounters on her walks along the water, instead focusing the beauty of the marshlands.

Several artists in Many Waters face this question—how should we respond to the refuse in Minnesota’s waterways? In Float, the large sculpture to your right, for example, Presley Martin takes the opposite approach, collecting debris from the Mississippi River and turning it into an unexpected work of art about human impact on the natural world.