Volume 20, Issue 3 | Autumn 2021

American Art History Digitally
sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Impossible Garden: A Contemporary Artist’s Digital Engagement with Women Artist-Naturalists of the Long Nineteenth Century and BeyondInteractive Feature

by Emma Steinkraus, with Carey Gibbons and Allan McLeod
In this digital version of her research-based, multimedia art installation Impossible Garden, specially prepared for NCAW, artist Emma Steinkraus examines the contributions of women artist-naturalists to historical botanical and scientific art primarily produced during the long nineteenth century. A fully navigable, annotated digital garden created from reproductions of illustrations of flora, fauna, and fungi made by sixty-nine women artists across four continents is accompanied by an interview with the artist by Carey Gibbons. By situating the project within the realms of biography, feminist discourse, social history, colonialism, and environmentalism, Steinkraus encourages a rethinking of works by women artist-naturalists while exploring the nineteenth century as a source of inspiration for artists and scholars today.

Emma Steinkraus is a visual artist and assistant professor of fine art at Hampden-Sydney College. Her paintings and installations use strategies of juxtaposition and layering to explore ecology, gender, and the history of science. Her current project, Impossible Garden, highlights the contributions of women artist-naturalists through an immersive wallpaper collaged from reproductions of their work. Steinkraus’s work has been exhibited recently at galleries including 1969 Gallery (New York, NY), Deanna Evans Project (Brooklyn, NY), Poker Flats (Williamstown, MA), and Field Projects (New York, NY). She has been awarded artist residencies at the Studios at MASS MoCA, the Wassaic Project, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Vermont Studio Center, where she is a Helen Frankenthaler Fellow. In 2020, she was an Eliza Moore Fellow for Artistic Excellence at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Her work can be found on her website or on Instagram at @emmasteinkraus.

Email the author: woodemma[at]gmail.com

Allan McLeod, Website Developer, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide

Citation: Emma Steinkraus, with Carey Gibbons and Allan McLeod, “Impossible Garden: A Contemporary Artist’s Digital Engagement with Women Artist-Naturalists of the Long Nineteenth Century and Beyond,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 20, no. 3 (Autumn 2021), https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2021.20.3.29.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Creative Commons License unless otherwise noted.

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Editor’s Introduction|Interactive Feature|Interview|Project Narrative

Impossible Garden
ORANGE TREE
LOCUST TREE
CHERRY TREE
APPLE TREE
PEACH TREE
RED ROSE BUSH
PINK ROSE BUSH
PEAR TREE
GROUND & AIR