JoAnn Verburg: Aftershocks

Abstract

"[JoAnn Verburg's] images of olive trees... are resplendent, enigmatic, and a kind of feint; [her] real subject is time and how it's experienced.... Verburg is less interested in capturing the truth of any particular moment than creating the conditions for that moment to exist in perpetuity. The video works especially, with their birdsong and softly dissipating mist, suggest the anticipatory energy of some coming thing, which of course never does. Time progresses and then loops back on itself. How can we find music and joy in a world where despair and conflict are so often the response to seemingly insurmountable challenges? What is our capacity for beauty in the face of the world's disasters, traumas, and adversity? These questions, asked throughout time, have particular resonance for artist JoAnn Verburg today.... The question of how to make meaningful art that is beautiful in balance with the knowledge of human suffering is a daily challenge." --Back cover.