DIALOGUE EARTH

Featuring incredible photography of spellbinding landscapes, extensive archival footage and a soundtrack by the Oscar nominated artist Hauschka, Hank Levine's latest documentary Dialogue Earth accompanies the internationally acclaimed earth painter Ulrike Arnold on her expedition into the wilderness of southern Utah.

As President Trump announced his executive order permitting the dismantling of national monuments to open up more federal land for exploitation, she decided to create the symbolic One World Painting, bringing together all of the earth she has been collecting over the past four decades from all over the globe as a statement to preserve our unique planet. 'It comes from within the Earth, spreads out to the Sun and continues on into space'  in the words of Eli Secody of the Navajo Tribe.

”Earth has been the theme of my work for almost four decades, earth in a most concrete and tangible way:  I paint outside with earth materials allowing nature – wind, rain and sun - to be my accomplices. I have traveled the world to work on every continent. Only authentic and local materials are used on site to express the essence of place: Minerals, sand, incrustations, glimmer and mud.” 

“This earth painting is the essence of my work: the ONE WORLD PAINTING unites pigments from all the continents where I have painted and collected earth colours over the past 38 years: reds and browns from Chile, Icelandic greens, Australian reds, strong greens from Armenia, black lava from Arizona with Senegalese red, white from the Easter Islands and yellow from Egypt and many more. The canvas is a dialogue of colours, a visual expression of the diversity of the continents, their countries, their histories and their peoples.

It is a statement of peace and community, an articulation of unity and equality. The circle painting completes this project into an exclamation mark, a statement for the preservation and protection of our unique planet earth,  peace and harmony.”

Ulrike Arnold, July 2018

The One World Painting - A rectangle measuring 7m x 2 m and a circle, 1.9m in diameter combining into an exclamation mark - is scheduled to be exhibited  for Earth Day.

Ulrike paints within nature and with the help of nature – usually far from the tracks of human civilisation.

She has been painting on all continents – in sand and salt deserts, on top of volcanoes, in front of ancient caves and in the midst of rock formations.

For Ulrike, the discovery of a site is the finding of a unique soul. After connecting to it, she never experiences loneliness or fears; even when journeying alone, carrying only the bare necessities to survive.

Ulrike wanders for hours until she settles to start digging, hammering and crushing her materials. The pigments attained are bound with water and resin to achieve the most authentic earthen character on the canvas.

She listens, quietens down and begins to paint.
Painting in her case means to work on the ground.

Her earth paintings are exposed to the forces of wind and rain, storms and the sun, lizards, snakes and coyotes. They all leave their tracks. They are her co-artists.

Besides earth, the artist also has her hands in the sky. She has been using meteorites particles in her paintings, bringing Earth and Heaven together. 

Ulrike always remains in the realm of abstraction, allowing viewers to find poetic connections between her art and the landscapes that inspire her.