Hurricanes are the focus of the newest exhibition in the Boseman Gallery. Located here at UNC Wilmington, this is a fitting theme for this time of year. Julie Greenberg, the exhibit’s artist, was excited to bring this new art to life and share it with UNCW students and faculty.

“I’ve always been interested in water, natural phenomena, and things more powerful than us,” said Raleigh artist Julie Greenberg at the opening of her exhibition “Within the Viewing Area” last Thursday. 

Raised close to the beach in New Jersey, Greenberg has felt “rooted in water” her whole life. For over six years now, she has been sketching raindrops and patterns in water formations. Greenberg has always preferred to work with screen-prints, so this was a natural choice of medium for her collection. She had been working on a piece about things that wash up on the beach, but the environment was too controlled to produce real patterns, which is what she was truly interested in. So she set her sights on a subject that was actually uncontrollable: hurricanes.

Greenberg described her process as “getting to know them [hurricanes] like a person” while she studies them. She looks at radar, satellite images, and gifs to get an idea of the general shape. Her pieces are made of paper, layered and glued in circular formations.

“I let the raindrops tell me what happens,” Greenberg said when asked how she decides the precise shape of each paper.

Greenberg also likes to read about the hurricane, especially what the media has to say, because of the different words and phrases they use. If a storm doesn’t live up to its predictions, she said the media will make fun of it, and if it blows away the forecasts, the media makes it out to be a bully of a storm. She uses some of these descriptions in the names of the pieces: a large yellow and black piece is titled “System IV: Danny ‘Forecast to Steadily Strengthen as He Moves West-Northwest.’”

The name for the exhibit, “Within the Viewing Area,” comes from a phrase meteorologists use to describe the part of the storm shown on the screen. The phrase intrigued Greenberg because it gives humans the sense that we have power over the weather. “We give them human names to try to control what’s happening,” she observed.

The Boseman Gallery attracted the attention of Greenberg because of its proximity to the ocean and the aesthetics of the gallery space. The clean, white walls and large windows provide plenty of natural light for the artwork. The Boseman Gallery Committee spends a week between exhibits cleaning, repainting, and preparing for the next installation.

Despite their usual preparedness, they experienced a major setback during the latest flipping process: Hurricane Hermine. Although the extra-tropical cyclone did not directly invade Wilmington, the city experienced heavy rainfall and flooding during Labor Day weekend, forcing the committee to delay the art installation until the very last day.

Greenberg’s exhibit is not only a perfect fit with Wilmington’s weather, but it also fulfills a frequent request from gallery visitors. Many people who provided feedback last year wanted to see exhibits that were “more environmentally conscious and nature related,” said Association for Campus Entertainment coordinator Andrea Ingle.

The gallery usually showcases work that is 75 percent student-produced, but each year they bring in established artists as well. Ingle, who holds an Art History degree and a Master’s in English, hoped it would be “encouraging for students to see a person so successful in executing ideas as an artist in the humanities.”

Later this year, the UNCW Chemistry Department will partner with the Plastic Ocean Project organization to produce another environmentally conscious exhibit. The art in “It’s a Blue World After All,” which will be showcased from April to August, will blend photographs and research to demonstrate the growing problem of ocean pollution.

Ingle encouraged students to consider joining the ACE team. Programmers In Training will learn about leadership opportunities within the organization, attend committee meetings and become eligible for applying to the executive board the following semester. Many of the organization’s participants major in business, film studies, communication studies, English or art. Despite this, anyone with an appreciation for aesthetics is welcomed. Student submissions for the All Student Show are open until the deadline on Feb. 6.

“Within the Viewing Area” will remain open to the public until Friday, Oct. 7. The Boseman Gallery is located on the second floor of the Fisher University Union.