Kari Varner Porfolio

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. I employ processes that range from direct interaction with the landscape to scanning from high above with satellite imagery. Through these connected series, our transformation of the landscape due to industrial production is shown on an intimate and grand scale.

Find more at the website and Instagram : @karivarner.

Images of poultry processing plants in the southern Missouri towns of Monett and Sedalia are grown in the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris. Algal blooms are the result of excess nitrogen and phosphorous contributed by animal husbandry and agriculture. Connecting local ecology to the broader impact of algal blooms and dead zones, these living images speak to these cumulative effects. Once grown, the images are photographed and then left to dry.

The term blueprint, originally used to reproduce technical drawings, has since evolved to describe any kind of plan. In this collection of cyanotypes, satellite images of Kansas feedlots depict the systems of industrial livestock production. Though the configurations vary, their shared language is one of efficiency and control. The cattle, rendered as mere specks, are easily forgotten within the gridded complex they briefly inhabit.

From above, perfect circles dot the otherwise arid landscape, formed by center-pivot irrigation systems that rotate around a central well. These systems draw from the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest underground water sources in the world. Following World War II, advances in agricultural technology led to widespread groundwater extraction. Over time, this has lowered the aquifer’s levels. In Wallace County, groundwater has declined by 80 percent, altering both the landscape and how it is used.

Each field is an archive of land and water use, shaped by the economic, political, and social forces that drive monoculture planting. The inscriptions on the terrain reflect these forces—patterns and lines formed by the processes of planting and harvest, now reduced and eroded. Suspended in a liminal space, stripped of context or connection, these fields hover in a no-man’s-land.

Hundreds of cross sections from center-pivot fields are stacked into an above-ground core sample. In some sections, the land is missing, revealing the details behind, while in others the land is vital and lush. They are all fed from the same source drawing deeply and continuously from a source 300 feet below. Once dry, the aquifer that feeds them will take over 6,000 years to replenish.

Rosignano Solvay, named for the Solvay chemical plant that dominates the surrounding landscape, has been producing soda ash for over a century. The effluent from the beachside factory has turned the sands white and the water aquamarine. This series depicts the looming factory that has greatly altered the landscape. By introducing high concentrations of soda ash to the development process, the prints distort and directly alter the appearance of the landscape on the page.