RAiR | 1993-94

Marcy Edelstein

Best known for her illustrations, map designs and graphic design work, Marcy R. Edelstein (1951- ) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Edelstein received her BA from Brandeis University and MA/MFA degrees from the University of Iowa. She subsequently taught at the Universities of Tennessee and Virginia before settling in Brooklyn, New York. Edelstein has exhibited widely in New York City and throughout the United States. Her work is included in collections at the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress and the Roswell Museum and Art Center. In addition to RAiR, she has attended the Cummington Community for the Arts Residency Program. Her current sculptures employ an abstract language that explores the line between nature and culture, and is deeply informed by biology, natural history and evolutionary theory. (From RAiR 50th Anniversary Exhibition Catalog, 2017)

“‘Darwin's Dilemma’ and ‘Unfolded’ are on-going series of digital works that pay homage to Charles Darwin and Stephen J. Gould, two acknowledged giants of evolutionary theory. The dilemma for Darwin was that the underlying principles of evolution as he developed them questioned then current suppositions about the creation of life.  Gould has brilliantly described how evolution is driven by chance in a process that is unique and non-repeatable, and for many still deeply disturbing in its denial of linearity and inevitability. The series is also a cautionary tale.  The works explore the vast complexity of organic forms and their transformation over the life of our planet, while meditating  on the irony that the puzzle that is life is being destroyed even as its mysteries are being unraveled. Through superimposition and juxtaposition the work explores the complex interrelationships of organisms, their interdependence, their co-evolution, and how they are shaped by their environment. Interwoven throughout are texts and experimental data on genetic research,  articles about environmental change, as well as drawings and notes by Darwin, Gould and other contemporary writers on evolutionary theory. The series questions suppositions about the relative permanence of species and environment by describing life as a process rather than a fait accompli, a process subject to radical change and destruction.”