MOTHER NATURE IN VISUAL ARTS

Given the catastrophic effects that climate change has on our planet, it is imperative that we, as a society and as individuals, take immediate action to combat environmental injustice and find innovative ways to help heal the Earth. Many people feel helpless in the face of the environmental crisis, while others don’t believe in the severity or even reality of climate change. We must find ways to bridge this helplessness and disbelief in order to create real, lasting change to help the Earth. Visual artists, working in mediums like sculpture, painting, and film have taken a creative approach against environmental injustice through their depiction of a divine feminine Nature Goddess, most contemporarily known as Mother Nature. In this thesis, I explore Mother Nature as an archetype who has resurfaced across time and cultures in similar Nature Goddesses like the Hindu Great Mother Devi-Shakti, the South American Goddess Romi Kumi, and the Greek Goddess Gaia. I argue that Her archetype is reemerging now, in a world that greatly needs Her, to remind us of humanity’s fundamental connection with and dependence on the natural world. Artists like Daniel Popper, Brian Kirhagis, Disney animators, and myself, depict the Mother Nature archetype to call us to reconnect with our inner Nature, and to appreciate Her beauty in its great complexity so that we may rediscover our love for Her, because to love someone or something truly is to protect them in every way possible. Simultaneously, Mother Nature art provides viewers with the unique opportunity to grieve the pain and sorrow which we have caused Nature, while displaying an avenue of hope for a better future in which we humans actively fight to protect and heal the natural world. It is through this remembering, self-understanding, rebalancing, appreciation, sorrow, and hope that Mother Nature art helps us grow to become more just humans who treat Nature with the loving action that She needs and deserves.