Simulacra
(or, The Persistence of Nature in an Age of Mediation)
Dornith Doherty, Etsuko Ichikawa, Bill Viola
June 25 - October 10, 2026
Marie Walsh Sharpe and Project Space Galleries
Ent Center for the Arts
Simulacra (or, The Persistence of Nature in an Age of Mediation)
Dornith Doherty, Etsuko Ichikawa, Bill Viola
In Simulacra, nature appears as an apparition. The exhibition considers how the natural world persists when our encounters are increasingly mediated by technology and threatened by ecological collapse. Bill Viola’s projected mountain fractures and reforms; Etsuko Ichikawa’s luminous field evokes wonder entangled with nuclear histories; Dornith Doherty’s lenticular seeds animate the archive of life, filled with potential even in the face of apocalypse. Together, these works suggest that mediation is both an obstacle and a place where attention and care take root in the Anthropocene.
Title image: Dornith Doherty, Seedling Cabinet I, II, III. Digital Chromogenic Lenticular Prints, 2019. 62 x 42” each
IMPORTANT DATES
Exhibition On-View:
June 25 - October 10, 2026
Events and Engagements:
More information coming soon!
Gallery hours:
Thursday - Saturday, 1 - 6 p.m., or by appointment
email: gallery@uccs.edu | call: 719-255-3504
About the Artists
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Dornith Doherty
A 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Dornith Doherty works primarily with photography, video, animations, works on paper, and scientific imaging. In projects that interweave the evidentiary and metaphoric powers of photographic images, Doherty illuminates ecological and philosophical issues that are often neglected when considering human entanglements in the environment. This has led to her many collaborations with scientists, archives, botanical centers, and research institutes concentrating on environmental themes to create artworks that use the beautiful intricacy of the natural world to inspire conversations around, and support for, the protection of a distant and unknowable future.
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Etsuko Ichikawa
Born in Tokyo, Japan, Ichikawa came to the U.S. to attend Pilchuck Glass School in 1993 and worked for Dale Chihuly as a studio assistant for eight years. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Seattle Art Museum, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, The Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo, and The Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. She is the recipient of grants from numerous institutions including the Pollock Krasner Foundation, Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award, Americans for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Bill Viola
Bill Viola (1951-2024) is internationally recognized as an artist instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. His video installations—total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound—employ state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. Viola was the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989), Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government (2006), the XXI Catalonia International Prize in Barcelona, Spain (2009), the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale art award in painting (2011), and elected an Honorary Royal Academician (2017).