Selva Ozelli interviews Mary Tiegreen about her environmentally inspired paintings.

Tell us about your educational and professional background as an artist

My interest in art began early and led me to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Iowa. I went on to study art in London and New York which resulted in a career in graphic design and the publishing industry. Throughout my career, I always had a fascination with technology as a tool for creation and was a very early adopter of the Macintosh computer for use in my design studio.

London Climate Action week featuring Mary Tiegreen

How did you become interested in environmental issues as a photographer and an AI artist?

My childhood summers were spent in a cottage on a pristine lake in Northern Michigan. It was here that I first connected with nature in a deep and thoughtful way, the way a child becomes a part of the nature around her. The clear cold waters of Lake Superior and the tall pine forests. Chipmunks and porcupines, and the occasional black bear lumbering down the path. A family of eagles high in a white pine tree. A Rainbow Trout breaking the surface of the lake. Wild blueberry bushes everywhere. The Northern Lights reflected in the water. And the beautiful silence when walking in our forest.

As the world has grown crowded and the climate continues to heat up, I have been heartsick at the thought of these treasures I cherished being destroyed. I wanted to contribute in some way to help change the direction we are all headed.

Tell us about your "Climate Disasters Inspired by Great Masters" ("AI Art Series") that is on exhibit at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University from October 1, 2024 to October 31, 2026.

Over the past eight years, I have had the opportunity to work as art director on ClimateChangeResources.org, an extensive not-for profit website dedicated to climate change issues. In early 2023, while working on ideas to illustrate sea level rise on the website, I began to wonder what New York City might look like under ten feet of water if painted by an artist. I'd been exploring Bing's AI text-to-image creator for a while and thought this could be an interesting test of the medium. Included in my prompt was a request for AI to paint this image of sea level rise in New York City in the style of James McNeill Whistler.

In less than 30 seconds, I was staring at an image that seemed to have been painted by this artist from a distant past, depicting an environmental crisis from the future. And that was how this project began.

I worked closely with Lena Tabori, one of the founders of the site. We collaborated on the choices of the climate issues and possible artists, and Lena wrote the text descriptions.

The website presents 36 climate disasters, each inspired by a different famous artist, along with a short description of the issues surrounding this specific disaster as well as a link to a page that offers an in-depth look at the problem.

How many issues caused by global warming does your AI Art Series address; why did you choose AI Art as opposed to photography to articulate these issues; and why did you pick each master artist to articulate those issues?

While the Climate Change Resources web site has 36 images, the exhibition at Lamont has 29 canvases, due to limited space.

Once I saw the possibilities of the AI images, I never thought about another medium. Photography is a very powerful resource to engage people, and there is a lot of incredible work out in the world today. I felt that I could contribute more by working with AI to create evocative and serious images that connect to the hearts of viewers.

Matching the artists to the subjects was sometimes a very clear decision, and sometimes serendipity. There were some issues that we tried three or four different artists before finding the one. And other were one and done.

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