Show Description:
Homeland is an exhibition that explores the relationship between land, fire, and identity within a time of ecological and political upheaval. Drawing from the artist’s firsthand experience with wildfires in the Columbia River Gorge, the work reflects on displacement, grief, and resilience as familiar landscapes are transformed. The exhibition holds space for both mourning and defiance, addressing the tension between personal loss and collective endurance.
The work emerges from an intimate engagement with place. The artist’s practice centers on foraging materials from the land and transforming them into inks, sculptures, and works on paper, creating a direct relationship between process and environment. The recent wildfires disrupted this relationship entirely. Evacuation as fire approached forced a confrontation with the fragility of the land and a shift in the meaning of “home.” Smoke, ash, and the destruction of ecosystems reshaped both the landscape and the artist’s sense of belonging.
Using materials directly impacted by fire, charred wood, burned plant matter, and ash the work embodies both devastation and renewal. The exhibition features large-scale sculptures, wall-mounted pieces, and works on paper that evoke place while addressing broader concerns including climate change, wildfires, and the political narratives shaping the American West. Challenging ideas of dominance and control, Homeland proposes an alternative understanding of home as a living, evolving relationship rooted in interdependence, responsibility, and resilience.
Artist Statements:
About Charlie-Anne Hopkins:
My practice is deeply rooted in place. By foraging materials to create inks, sculptures, and works on paper, I establish a direct and tangible relationship with the land. This process ties my practice to the physical landscape in an intimate and evolving way, transforming natural materials into pieces that reflect both personal experience and broader ecological narratives. My work explores the profound and often unsettling experience of witnessing climate change in real-time. Living in the Western United States, I am acutely aware of the rapid transformations taking place—wildfires, droughts, and shifting ecosystems—each leaving an indelible mark on the land and on my own sense of belonging. My pieces function as gestures of simultaneous surrender and defiance, embodying the tension between mourning and resilience. As I grapple with an increasing sense of solastalgia, my practice becomes a way to process grief while also resisting narratives of helplessness. The imagery and subject matter I engage with stem from my deep interest in dismantling patriarchal tropes of the American West. I challenge the myths of rugged individualism and conquest that have long defined the region’s cultural identity, instead offering alternative perspectives that emphasize interdependence, adaptation, and reverence for the land. By weaving together history, ecology, and materiality, my work invites a reconsideration of place—not as something to be dominated or possessed, but as something to be in relationship with.