Andrea Bersaglieri, Front 2021, Oil on Canvas, Photo Courtesy of the Artist

The Gift of Growing Things: Andrea Bersaglieri’s Dirt, Weeds, Fire

Antelope Valley College Art Gallery, Lancaster
Through April 1, 2022

Written by Genie Davis for Art and Cake

Andrea Bersaglieri can make even a clod of dirt look beautiful and did so at Antelope Valley College Art Gallery in Lancaster. Dirt, Weeds, Fire offered detailed looks at trees, plants, weeds, and yes, dirt, observations of nature taken from her own yard. Undertaking a documentation of the new ecosystems evolving through climate change and other environmental impacts, non-indigenous species, and the like, she reveals the delicate, transitional aspect of all nature – new, and old.

According to Bersaglieri, “My work has increasingly been focused on my immediate surroundings, literally my own yard, looking for evidence – of what, I am not sure. During the pandemic this just became amplified…a lot of the work was done during the pandemic in this very insular environment.”

She considers her work to be documentarian, and the intimacy and detail of these works in watercolor and as charcoal or ink drawings, is careful and exquisite. Seeing the works exhibited in the high desert, she found to be enlightening. She says that the high desert backdrop of the college gallery space, “with all of the sprawl and traffic and open space, helps contextualize [what] I would imagine the LA Basin [would] look like – without all of the irrigation we apply.”

The artist grew up in the bay area and was surprised by the lack of trees in the Los Angeles area when she first moved south. “Here, when you see a big tree, you’re like ‘oh, wow! look at that tree!! Isn’t it amazing!’ My work started reflecting that amazement of nature. But when I go home to visit, there are so many trees it’s almost humdrum, the trees are a dime a dozen, less special. You don’t appreciate things unless their scarcity draws attention to them, causing you to look more closely.”

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