ABOUT
海野恵 Megumi Gerdes is a Japanese-American artist whose practice centers on hand-burned works on paper. Through the tactile process of burning, she explores themes of presence, impermanence, and time.
Drawing from her background in landscape architecture, Gerdes understands landscape not as a pastoral or fixed image, but as a living, evolving system—one shaped by layers of history, memory, and environmental change. This perspective informs her approach to material, where transformation is not simply represented but enacted.
Using hand-dyed paper, incense, and light, Gerdes creates burn works through controlled burns and inscriptions. Light and shadow become active collaborators, revealing traces of alteration and absence. Her work evokes the essence of yūgen (幽玄)—the haunting beauty found in what is fleeting, marked, and left behind.
Through her practice, she offers a slower register, inviting moments of contemplation, reflection, and release.
EDUCATION
2018 MLA, Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design, Philadelphia, PA
2013 BA, Art History ; Printmaking, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Press
Interview with Conversations with Artists
Exhibitions
2023 Phainesthasia ‘Objects that Shine Forth,’ Small Works Project, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
2017 Tokyo Embers, Tokyo Landscape Futures, Meyerson Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2017 Horizons, Design in the Terrain of Water, Morgan Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2017 Float, Pop-Up Print Show, Design in the Terrain of Water, Meyerson Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2016 Slatelands, Slate Belt Heritage Center, Northampton, PA
2013 Excavations, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Middletown, CT
