Janet Culbertson Honors Endangered Animals in New Exhibition

By Artists & Galleries

3 minute 02/26/2017

Janet Culbertson "Galapagos Tortoise" detail — Janet Culbertson “Galapagos Tortoise” detail

Shelter Island artist Janet Culbertson’s Endangered, an exhibition of large-scale drawings, will run from March 6–April 8 at Suffolk County Community College’s Lyceum Gallery on the Eastern Campus in Riverhead.

An opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, March 9, from 4–6 p.m. It’s open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

Culbertson has been raising awareness about endangered animals and their shrinking habitat for more than 40 years through her drawings and paintings that speak about the devastating effects of widespread pollution and human encroachment on the environment.

The artist’s ink and charcoal drawings feature endangered animals such as the gray wolf, the Galapagos tortoise and the African elephant. Culbertson tells of her encounter with a Galapagos tortoise that became a seminal moment in her artistic development: “While visiting the Galapagos Islands, a giant tortoise came lumbering through our camp, uprooting my tent stakes. She stole my heart and took center stage in many of my works. The tortoise-inspired me to do a series of mural-size drawings of animals in which I honor them as creatures of dignity with the right to exist beyond serving humans,” she said.

The magnitude of this experience, Lyceum Gallery explains, is reflected in the monumental scale of Culbertson’s drawings, which are as large as 8 feet high.

Culbertson has exhibited her art in museums and galleries throughout the US and internationally. Her work is in a number of museum collections, including The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia; and The National Museo de Los Ninos in San Jose, Costa Rica. She’s also had many solo exhibitions, including Future Tense at the Islip Museum, and Paradise Gone? at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, NY.

Culbertson also received a 2008 Pollock Krasner grant and two 2003 NY State Council of the Arts grants.

The Suffolk County Community College Eastern Campus is located at 121 Speonk-Riverhead Road in Riverhead. Find more info about the Lyceum Gallery here.

For more info, visit janetculbertson.net.