Where the Root is in the House

June 3, 2024 - September 2, 2024

"Where the root is in the house, the devil can do no harm, and if anyone should carry the plant about on his person no venomous beast can harm him."

The title of this exhibit is from a misreading of an excerpt from the 1491 text "Ortus Sanitatis", also known as "The Garden of Health". A source interprets the excerpt as referring to the hemlock plant. Historically, this plant has been used medicinally, yet is better known as a poison. Plants with similar dual histories, as well as plants which both devastate and thrive upon introduction to a new environment offer a metaphor for considering how linguistic, spiritual, and family lineages represent sources of both human connection and distance, power and catastrophe, placemaking and desire.

The artwork selected for this exhibition combines visual and written language to understand how words and images may paralyze or transport, numb or alert, people to the sensory experiences of nature.

Chelsea Herman's artists' books, prints, and works on paper have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She served as Instructor of Book Arts and Papermaking at the University of Nebraska, Omaha where she coordinated the University of Nebraska Omaha Fine Arts Press. She is currently the proprietor of Flight Path Press, a private press in Council Bluffs, Iowa.