"Along a Shadowed Shore," a solo exhibition by Sharon Hart, will run concurrent with the 2024 SECAC Juried Exhibition. Sharon Hart is this year's SECAC Fellow.
About the Artist:
Sharon Lee Hart is a South Florida-based artist exploring ecology, ephemerality, and time through experimental and cameraless photography. While maintaining an active studio practice, Hart serves as an Associate Professor of Art at Florida Atlantic University. With an environmental focus, she has also served as an artist-in-residence at Joshua Tree National Park (Joshua Tree, CA), The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences (Rabun Gap, GA), and The Studios of Key West (Key West, FL). Hart received the 2023 SECAC Artist’s Fellowship Award. Her work is in several permanent collections including the King County Public Art Collection (Seattle, WA) and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, both in the U.S. and internationally.
About the Work in Along a Shadowed Shore:
As a photo-based artist drawn to engaging nature as subject and catalyst, I have centered this project on the coastal ecosystems of South Florida, with emphasis on a half-mile radius in Delray Beach*. The shoreline, a transitory place where earth and sea meet - marked by tidal shifts, erosion, and climate change - both interests and concerns me. I use experimental and more sustainable processes that incorporate local algae and plant materials to capture the essence of the place. Through cameraless processes, cyanotypes, and anthotypes, this work also explores themes of conservation and ephemerality.
I have been observing a significant increase in sargassum seaweed on the beach near my home. While this seaweed plays an essential role in the ocean ecosystem, providing sustenance and shelter for various species, its overgrowth threatens to degrade water quality and overwhelm marine environments by smothering habitats and entangling animals. In response to these unprecedented levels of sargassum, I create photograms at the edge of the sea, imprinting a microcosm of the ocean onto my light-sensitive paper. I then make a tea from washed-ashore seaweed to develop these images and use saltwater to stabilize them. This process ignited further curiosity about sargassum, so I began bringing the seaweed into the darkroom to magnify segments and photographically record their intricate structures and gas-filled berries.
Soon, I began venturing up from the water's edge to explore the coastal ecotone, where plants play a significant role in the ecological and physical dynamics of the landscape. Photographed at night against a paper-grid backdrop, area plants are measured and highlighted through cyanotypes. At the same time, I was creating anthotypes with fallen frangipani petals, the invasive inch plant, and blackberries, among other plants. They fade and change over time, mirroring the resilient yet fragile, ever-changing nature of the shoreline. Collectively, these works reveal familiar elements of our coastal landscape in unconventional ways that illuminate our impact on, and interdependence with, the natural world.
* Site location coordinates 26°30'19.1"N 80°03'03.6"W