Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art invites Julia Becker, a recognized multimedia artist, and Professor of Fine Art at University of Providence in Great Falls Montana, to present a solo exhibition titled Body of Land. Becker’s exhibition is a multi-layered experience which participates in and responds to EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, a cross-border multimedia environmental intervention and project of the CODEX FOUNDATION. Becker and the museum are pleased to take part in the EXTRACTION movement via the curatorial path of Nicole Maria Evans, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections.

EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, is an event created by collaborators and founders Peter Koch, Edwin Charles Dobb (1950-2019,) and Sam Pelts, which is taking place throughout 2021. Their passion and knowledge about global environmental matters and an understanding that art moves people towards action was the impetus for EXTRACTION’s creation.

Body of Land, at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, will showcase the result of Julia Becker’s inquiry and work for her Body of Land project. Video documentation of her body ritual movements, which are site driven, will be incorporated into an installation in the gallery space with the inclusion of Becker’s artist books and paintings/monoprints. Julia Becker maps out the bodily experience within the landscape. Her work is informed by research in topography, neurology, ecology, and is focused on the impact industry has on the land we live on and the bodies we live in.

“As a 63-year-old, I trust my process, my deep knowing, my life experience and inclinations. When the Extraction project was brought to my attention, I was inspired to look through decades of work considering the concepts presented and found this vein deep in my life’s work. Having grown up next to what is now a Superfund site, a chemical dump in the middle of Cincinnati, and our family farm where I indulged in quiet time within nature, I was aware of conflicts manmade and natural as a young child. Eventually, I traveled the world with open eyes, taking it all in, and working jobs at the interface (wildlands fire fighter, gardener/farmer, wilderness ranger and trail crew, landscaper for a company who did mine restoration). As a youngster, I made my way to Montana after hiking the Appalachian trail from Virginia to Maine and in desperate need for a long solo walk, in nature, to experience deep Wilderness. Eventually I worked for the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service in the Wilderness. I did this after studying wilderness ecology in Missoula in the late 1970’s with amazing professors in an interdisciplinary program “Wilderness and Civilization”. Through my many pursuits, I continued to write poetry and create art every day as that has always been my nature.

Body of Land, involves an inquiry into the local landscape where industry happens, people live, and wild nature convene. The great Missouri River and the ancient cottonwoods that stand in its pathway; the dams and their effects on currents, flow, animal life and migration, health, and safety; the toxic dumps and history of dumping into our water veins and arteries; abandoned structures of past exploitation and ravishes of the topography; power lines across every rise of land stirring images of Golgotha. The skeletons and bones of the land.”

–Julia Becker, 2021

Exhibitions presented by Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art are supported in part by the Montana Arts Council a state agency funded by the State of Montana, Humanities Montana, National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding is provided by museum members and the citizens of Cascade County, and generous support from First Interstate Bank, Davidson Family Foundation, Cobb Foundation, and free admission provided by “an anonymous donor advised fund at The Chicago Community Foundation”.