Professor explains art through eyes of the artist

Art is affected by both the artist's background and the society surrounding the artist, UA Art Professor Moira Geoffrion said.

Geoffrion said her work is "a signifier for the greater environment in which I live."

Geoffrion grew up on a southwestern farm with a philosopher father, a musician mother and about 15 other children, she told about 100 people who attended her speech "Sonoran Images: An Artist's Perception of Environmental Reality." She said her own work is deeply affected by her family history.

"Noise and confusion were the norms," she said, adding that to find peace she would wander through the 135 acres of woods surrounding the farm.

She said the strongest images she has from childhood are those of tree branches against the sky. People can relate to nature as represented in art, she added

Tree branches were an oft-used image in slides Geoffrion showed of her work during the speech at Gallagher Theatre. Other slides were peppered with dump sites, mountains and different representations of the southwest.

Geoffrion used slides of works by various other artists to show how art is affected by societal trends.

Speaking first of petroglyphs and moving rapidly to the Hudson River School water color artists who dominated the end of the 19th century, she explained how views of nature change as society changes.

The artists of the Hudson River School presented "nature as spectacular, dwarfing people," she said, in contrast to those civilizations which created rock art, who presented themselves as part of nature.

Modern art has also incorporated artists' perceptions of nature, Geoffrion said.

"Art in the '60s focused on art in nature," she said, showing slides of various pieces that used rocks and sunlight to represent the environment..

"Many artists were commenting on the environment but raising environmental issues also," she said.

In the '70s and '80s, artists began using galleries again to display their work, but art as a metaphor for nature still existed.