Hillyer Gallery, Washington DC 2020

Animals have an instinctual flow with the balance of their ecosystem, i.e. nature. They have as much intelligence bound in this instinctual knowledge to fill a book. Each of these animal habitats has a book structure that suggests this innate encyclopedia of knowledge of nature that guides their place in it. The books contain suggestions of migratory maps, daily paths, flora and other fauna. Each animal tableau has a presence of intelligence and dignity in each way of life. All of these animals are impacted by human lack of deference to the balance of nature and indeed our entire planet. In contrast these animal tableaus bind artifacts of human origin with the animals’ natural worlds, reminding us of our ancient roots of positive and fruitful acknowledgement of animal power and coexistence.

Indigo Dream, The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE. 2017.

Indigo Dream is Stephanie Garmey's vision of the voyage that elephant herds take across the African savannah to the Salt Caves of Mt. Elgon in Kenya. Led by the herd's matriarch, these journeys are made at night, under the stars.
Knowledge or Memory of the route has been passed on through the matriarchal lineage for thousands of years.

From an imagined bed in her "Dream Hut", Garmey immerses the viewer in what she describes as the innate, learned, and shared knowledge of the incredible animal world we share the earth with, including elephants,monkeys, weavers birds, and the grey-crowned crane. The animals and foliage reach out in this installation to share their amazing intelligence,beauty, and knowledge.

The artist draws her inspiration from natural objects, fossils, and antique taxidermy. Her meditations on nature use a variety of media including painting, intricately cut paper, book arts, drawing, clay, and light projection.

“ Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul."

- Naturalist and Preservationist John Muir

 “I defy anyone to look upon elephants without a sense of wonder. Their very enormity, their clumsiness, their giant stature, represent a mass of liberty that sets you dreaming. They’re … Yes the last individuals."

- Romain Gary writes from The Roots of Heaven 

What are days for? To wake us up. To put between the endless nights. What are nights for? To fall through time into another world.”

- Performance artist Laurie Andersons documentary, Heart of a Dog 

Edge of the Forest, VisArts, Rockville,MD. 2015.

“Edge of the Forest”
“Edge of the Forest” explores the solitude of travel, place, and time through nature. The slow looking at water, trees, plants, and animals translates the life force, movement, rhythm, and our perspective of time and place.

Garmey was inspired by the naturalist Henry David Thoreau's stay in a small cabin on Walden Pond in 1847. Thoreau's simplicity for a single cot and three chairs - one chair for solitude, two for conversation, and three for socializing. This influenced her choices for her own paper cabin with hand made hiking boots, handmade rocks and filling journals with writings and drawings. Thinking of her own solitudes and replenishment through nature helped create this space.
 
The artist invites the viewer to walk through these environments, to evoke subtle and sometimes surprising shifts of moods and space. The work will heighten awareness of our inter-dependence with nature, and evoke a respect and willingness to protect the environment.
The installation includes many works made with cut paper, as with the three dimensional animals. The mural of animal drawings are done in graphite with screen printed ferns.  The drawings on the cabin are drawn on paper which has been made transparent with wax. Wax was used to transfer drawings to the encaustic surface on the slices of wood.  

I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not , when I came to die discover that  I had not lived.
 
- Henry David Thoreau 

Wetlands, Pinkard Gallery, The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. 2013.


I am interested in the slowing of time and a meditative recollection of the regenerative and corroding events of nature.

A canoe gliding on the surface of a river.

A heron returning to a stream.

The muddy undergrowth and continuous humming of the swamp.

A fish skeleton picked clean.

The sound of woodpeckers tapping into trees.

The weathered scattered bones of a deer.

These images come from time spent exploring natural areas along the east coast.

These paper wax animals were created for "Forest Floor" at Stevenson University,Baltimore,MD.2011. Combining trace monoprints on mulberry paper with the cut paper and wax helped combine drawing and sculpture.The trace monoprints became a second skin over the animals bellies and backs.To my surprise they looked like tattoos or drawings of anatomy.These are life size animals that I find joy in spotting through my walks in the woods.