Alison Berry's artful maps tell the story of a place
Through the medium of painting, Alison Berry demonstrates a unique gift: the ability to tell the story of a place.
Using her distinctive cartographic method, she creates a bold and colorful landscape animated by features of both natural history and human culture – as it pertains to that locale.
A common thread: water, past and present
In her commission for The Emerson Resort and Spa, located on the Esopus Creek in the Catskill Watershed of NY State, Berry takes water as the theme, and explores the area’s distant past, through twists and turns that have shaped the present.
Titled “Watershed: The Flow of Time Through Place”, the seven-panel series begins with the formation of oceans on a young planet earth.
Covering vast stretches of time, the paintings highlight significant environmental conditions and changes in the biosphere. Animal populations, from fish to dinosaurs to Pleistocene megafauna, flourish and disappear, and ultimately human populations emerge to compete for land and resources.
Adding value: connecting viewers
Visitors delight in the beautiful colors and exquisitely rendered passages of detail, infographics and text.
More than just a visual attraction, the paintings communicate an experience of place that engages and connects viewers with a heritage rich in both cultural and natural history.
A favorite feature at the resort, the series has become a starting point for group tours and an intellectual journey for visitors eager to learn and enjoy the flow of time through the places surrounding the Emerson Resort.
Visualizing science and society
Interweaving elements of biology, geology, anthropology, and social history throughout, the series concludes with a panel showing the network of subterranean water tunnels that bring fresh water from the Catskill reservoirs to New York City at a rate of one billion gallons per day.