Chapter of
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all"
--HELEN KELLER
ANTARCTIC ARTIST
Thursday, May 5, 2005
The next New England Chapter of The Explorers Club presentation will be held on Thursday, May 5th, when we are pleased to welcome artist and sculptor, pilot, captain, boat builder, and explorer Gabriel Warren. Gabriel has been a sculptor for more than 30 years. As a two-time winner (2004 and 1999) of the National Science Foundation's Artists and Writers in Antarctica grant, he was the first sculptor from any country ever to be sent to the last continent.
He explains"? far from limiting my endeavors to current art and its concerns, I have elected to inform my work largely from sources such as the natural sciences, archaeology and history. For me, travel is a crucial tool to bring these sources into focus, and provide them with depth?" In pursuit of his art, Gabriel has indeed traveled far and wide, with expeditions to Antarctica, New Zealand, the North Atlantic, Latin America, Alaska, and Northern Africa, using all manners of transportation, including boats built by his own hand.
Gabriel's sculpture revolves around his affection for and perceptions of the natural world, and the distress it undergoes at the hands of humans. His preferred artistic metaphor is the varied phenomena of ice, in all of its many forms, including icebergs, ice shelves, ice caps, and glaciers. He has extensively studied such earth sciences as geology, geomorphology, and glaciology, which is immediately evident in his art. Later this year, Gabriel will return to the Antarctic, again courtesy of the National Science Foundation, to conduct an extensive investigation of crevasses, during which time he will take up residency on an iceberg, and make numerous over flights in various aircraft.
In addition to the National Science Foundation, he has also received grants from the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and has lectured widely throughout the world. Educated at the Rhode Island School of Design, he has held one-man shows and has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island) and internationally in Nova Scotia and New Zealand. Gabriel is represented by the Kouros Gallery in New York, the New Leaf Gallery in Berkeley, CA,
and the PMP Gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. When not afar gaining inspiration for his art, Gabriel divides his time between his home in Rhode Island and the remote cabin he built on a sea cliff in Nova Scotia. Samples of his art can be seen at his website at
http://www.art-farm.net/homeGabe.htm.
Sincerely,
Mark Allio
Program Chairman