Mural VII: Backstage by Margeaux Walter

Exterior Wall of Joshua Tree Art Gallery
61607 29 Palms Highway Joshua Tree, CA

The MBCAC continues our mission to inspire and enliven the community through the arts by presenting a rotating line up of large temporary murals on the exterior wall of the Joshua Tree Art Gallery. For our seventh round, we feature this work created by local artist Margeaux Walter.

Margeaux Walter
Backstage, 2022
From my series, Don't Be a Square

ARTIST STATEMENT: Recently I have been exploring ways to depict a disconnection with the landscape in reference to climate change denial through staged site-specific photography. Backstage is from my series Don't Be a Square, in which I am staging site-specific interventions in the landscape that when seen through a camera lens disrupt the landscape much like a glitch in the image. I see the Anthropocene age as a glitch in time; it is so short in the greater timeline of life, and yet has caused so much havoc.In my performative photographs, this glitch can be seen as a pixel, a cubicle, or a portal, yet there is a glimpse of the humanity that is both camouflaged into the land and completely disconnected from it. I use my own body and sets that I build in dialogue with the landscape to create these images. In doing so, I simultaneously experience both a deep connection with the land and a disconnect. I see an inherent cultural disassociation with the environment as directly linked to climate change.This is the glitch.

About the artist: Margeaux Walter is an artist based in Joshua Tree working with photography, video, performance and installation. She received her MFA from Hunter College and her BFA from NYU's Tich School of the Arts. She is represented by Winston Wachter Fine Art in NY, and Foto Relevance in Houston, TX, and exhibits nationwide. She has been awarded artist-in-residence programs at organizations such as Montalvo Arts Center, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, VCCA, JTHAR, BigCi in Bilpin, Australia (environmental award) and Joshua Tree National Park. Her work is featured in publications including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, and Blouin Art Info.The full series of Don't Be a Square will be shown at Winston Wachter in NYC starting April 27th through June 10*, 2023. She also has a solo exhibition of new work at Black Rock Gallery in Yucca Valley starting in October 2023, through January 2024.More of Margeaux's artwork can be seen at www.margeauxwalter.com or on Instagram @margeauxwalter