Hopeful Chaos (2020- )

Merrill Steiger began her new series “Hopeful Chaos” in 2020, at the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While quarantined, she removed herself from the uncertainty of everyday life by escaping to a new – more hopeful world – that she created through her work. Using sunrise/sunset imagery, she found a “light at the end of the tunnel” in the midst of the chaos unfolding. The works represent a balanced optimism that is both hopeful and realistic.

When we are caught up in the natural beauty of the Earth, we leave behind our human distractions to find satisfaction for whatever is occurring in the moment. For Steiger, Sunsets are this gift. They remind her of the miracle of life; a momentary reprieve where it is possible to let her negative energy, worries and stresses melt away. Sunsets are also one of the few aspects of life that are guaranteed; unconsciously, this certainty is a soothing balm for the uncertainty of the soul.

The works in the series are also inspired by Dallol, a hydrothermal field located in a remote part of the northern Danakil Depression in Ethiopia, that is one of the hottest place on the planet year-round. The term Dallol was coined by the Afar people and means dissolution or disintegration, describing a landscape of green acid ponds and iron oxide, sulfur and salt desert plains. The colors and shapes created by the sunrise/sunset and Dallol elements lend themselves to visual exploration, particularly when they are juxtaposed together to create a visual representation of the tensions and challenges that we’re currently facing as a planet.

Steiger’s use of these elements is a comment on global warming and climate change, as well as a representation of her unconscious feelings about what is happening to our planet as a result. The piece, “Hot Zone” is a diptych that speaks directly to the rising temperatures of planet earth and the impact that has both on us physically as well as socially.

Steiger also explores the tangential theme of water shortage in several of the works created in 2022. “Raindrops” is a depiction of sadness and loneliness, of which Steiger experienced quite deeply while in the thick of the pandemic, while “Water, Water Everywhere” and “Ripples” depict how we all are affected by one another’s actions, as they pertain to water use and beyond.

While nature is getting obliterated, beauty cannot. In “Orchid” and “Sunflowers 1 and 2”, Steiger paints a hopeful picture of joy and how it exists no matter the external tragedies we face as a shared humanity. Our world has irrevocably changed since the beginning of 2020, and it is also our role to build it anew. Hopeful Chaos finds the unseen beauty within the turmoil.