October 23–November 21, 2025
Altered Ecology
Kari Varner
Sheetz Gallery, Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts
Artist Statement
The echoes of industry and human presence are inscribed upon the landscape. This body of work explores these traces, along with the ecological and economic value we assign to altered environments. Drawing from the environment as subject and material, images are formed from materials enacting change in the land and water. In this alchemical process of creation, the photograph emerges from an altered ecology.
I form relationships with landscapes by wandering and foraging for images and plants alike. Coming away with both in hand, the two are intimately tied. Invasive plants are conscripted into the process of making. Though labeled as undesirable and worthy of eradication, the emergence of the photograph is reliant upon these plants.
In other works, the photograph is not harvested but grown. Images of poultry plants that contribute significantly to algal blooms are formed directly from algae. The photograph requires a week of daily care through the pipetting of nitrogen-based fertilizer, the same substance contributing to fresh and salt water dead zones.
By using these materials, I become implicated in these processes of environmental alteration. Often the material experiments I undertake seem a reflection of our experiments on the environment itself. How much can the material or land tolerate before it ceases to be recognized, before its identity is irrevocably altered or lost.
Artist Bio
Using a variety of image making techniques, Varner makes photographs that explore the traces of industry and agriculture upon the landscape. She received her M.F.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and her B.F.A. from the University of Denver. She is currently an artist-in-residence for the Erie Canal and serves as a lecturer in photography at Binghamton University. She has been awarded grants from the Light Work Organization and the Puffin Foundation as well as an Arts and the Community Grant administered by the New York State Council for the Arts.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally in Italy, Switzerland, South Korea, and Japan. Nationally, her work has been exhibited in New York, Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, and New York.
Artist Checklist
- Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Japanese barberry
20” x 16.5” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Japanese stiltgrass
20” x 16.5” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with autumn olive
20” x 16.5” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Japanese knotweed
20.5” x 16.75” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Japanese barberry
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Japanese barberry
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Garlic Mustard
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Morrow’s honeysuckle
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Garlic Mustard
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Silver gelatin print developed in the invasive species, Garlic Mustard
11” x 9” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Autumn Olive
16.75” x 21.5” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Autumn Olive
21” x 16.75” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with Japanese knotweed
20.5” x 16.5” - Altered Ecology, 2025
Cyanotype toned with longleaf pine
20.5” x 16.75” - Monett & Sedalia, 2022
Archival Pigment Print of image grown in the microalgae chlorella vulgaris
20.5” x 16.75” - Monett & Sedalia, 2022
Archival Pigment Print of image grown in the microalgae chlorella vulgaris
18” x 14” - Monett & Sedalia, 2022
Archival Pigment Print of image grown in the microalgae chlorella vulgaris
18” x 14” - Monett & Sedalia, 2022
Archival Pigment Print of image grown in the microalgae chlorella vulgaris
18” x 14” - Glendale, 2025
Cyanotype
21.25” x 17.5” - Glendale, 2025
Cyanotype
21.25” x 17.5” - Glendale, 2025
Cyanotype
21” x 17” - Autumn Olive, 2025
UV Print on handmade autumn olive paper
11” x 9”
Misciagna Family Center
for Performing Arts
Penn State Altoona
3000 Ivyside Park
Altoona, PA 16601
814-949-5452
[email protected]
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This publication is available in alternative media on request.
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