Work by Art Studio alumna Jodi Connelly (MFA ’18) is a new exhibition, “Before You Were This Place, You Were Another Place,” at the Verge Center for the Arts.

Through the physicality of working directly with the land, Connelly explores the effects of human presence in the environment and how our migrations and activities have transformed it. Her interactions with the landscape are an attempt to create intimacy with a place and become part of its rhythms. The exhibition explores the history and ecology of the land where the artist has reintroduced native plants to the site of the
former mining town of Knoxville, CA, located on the McLaughlin reserve.

The solo exhibition is one of first two Ali Youssefi Projects (AYP) Artists in Residence. The Artist in Residency Program is the first in a series of initiatives to be launched by AYP, which was created with financial support from generous donors following the untimely death of Ali Youssefi. Youssefi was a proud Sacramentan, humanitarian, and deep lover of the arts. The AYP Artist in Residency program aims to continue Youssefi’s efforts to champion artistic growth within Sacramento.

Connelly’s work investigates the complexities of the human relationship to nature and the environment. Through site-specific environmental interventions that include photographic documentation, sculpture and drawing, she explores issues of climate change and the effects migration and development have had on native ecosystems over the past 400 years. Her work is hand wrought and physical, in an attempt to create intimacy between herself and the land upon which she works. She completed her MFA in Art Studio at the University of California, Davis in 2018, where she received the Keister and Allen Prize for her project “An Intervention in Space and Time,” a year-long environmental intervention at the UC Davis McLaughlin Reserve. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Manetti Shrem Museum in Davis, CA, the Greenville Museum of Art and the Durham Art Guild in North Carolina.

The exhibition runs through Feb. 16. The Verge Center for the Arts is located at 625 S Street in Sacramento. Hours are Thursday Wednesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.