Mark Warpenburg is an artist based in Morgan County, Indiana, whose work deals with nature, altering scale and perspective.
Q1: What is your earliest memory of interacting with nature?
At about three years old. I kept going in the kitchen from playing outside asking my Mother for crackers with butter. After repeating a half a dozen times, my Mother came out to see what I was doing. I was catching giant ants and "making bug sandwiches".
Q2: How does the natural world influence your work as an artist?
Nature is my subject matter. For and long as I can remember I have been a "Tree Hugger". I've came from a long line of tree huggers and have raised my sons the same. We have planted over 3000 trees on our property as they were growing up. I alter scale and perspective in my work to help the viewer see the beauty often overlooked. I choose subject matter to assist in drawing attention to a need.
Q3: What role do you think artists have in helping to promote or protect nature and the environment?
"A picture is worth a thousand words". With my work, I hope to draw attention to urgent needs and actions for our environment. My Monarch's Nursery Series and Beez Series both draw attention to modern chemistry and GMO's destroying our own food cycle. Both of these insects are endangered along with many other pollinator bugs due to carless use and reckless alterations in plants. With the elimination of our pollinators we are ending our own food cycle.
Q4: What message do you hope people take with them from your piece(s) in the Human/Nature exhibition?
I hope people will be inspired to study nature, to discover the hidden beauty. To want to have a better understanding of the reckless way our environment is being treated by those we have put into office to protect it. I hope to inspire people to research, to drive past Yellowwood and ask yourself if that looks like large trees removed to make the small ones healthy? Then I hope they are mad as hell, and at the very least, get involved by helping when you vote for the people we put in charge of our life.
Mark Warpenburg's Not a Puzzle is one of two works of his showing at exhibition.