Harbingers is an immersive installation of organic, tattered fiber columns pierced by flame, suggesting a ghost forest in the aftermath of wildfire. Dozens of these forms, nearly 10 feet tall, are suspended from the ceiling with paths through the installation inviting viewers to contemplate the impact of extreme weather patterns like drought and the fires that follow, not only on forests, but on human survival.

The cylindrical columns are made from stark white linen gauze, painted with India ink, and burned and charred with a candle. Working with flame became a meditation on fire and carbon, and at the same time an observation of the impact of wind gusts, temperature, and oxygen on fire. On days when red flag warnings for extreme drought and wind were issued in Madison, Wisconsin, where she lives, she paused the burning.

White symbolizes the draining of life, and its absence; India ink, made of burnt particulates, symbolizes the aftermath of fire. Rosing began this work long before the fires in the Boundary Waters and Quetico Provincial Park, Lake Superior wilderness areas she canoed, camped, and hiked as a child over 50 years ago and returned to with her sons decades later.

A video projected on the wall emerges through the white forest, with footage from thriving forests layered with wildfire and invented imagery visualizing the atmosphere in transition, filling and thickening with carbon.
We have looked to forests to save us from the climate crisis. Will they survive — and how much is their distress adding to atmospheric carbon?

Katherine Steichen Rosing (b. Appleton, WI) envisions the invisible forces connecting forests and watersheds to atmosphere and climate processes through abstract-symbolic paintings and immersive installations. 

Her work has been exhibited in over 100 solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums internationally, including Hillyer Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Tomioka Museum (Tokyo), Saitama Modern Art Museum (Saitama, Japan), The Rockford Art Museum, The Museum of Wisconsin Art, ARC Gallery (Chicago), Amos Eno Gallery (NYC), and Kim Storage Gallery (Milwaukee).

She has been awarded science-based artist residencies at the UW-Madison Department of Limnology’s Trout Lake Research Station and the St. Croix Watershed Research Station (Science Museum of Minnesota), and a residency at Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland, as well as grants including the 2022 Forward Art Prize and the Madison Arts Commission/Wisconsin Arts Board Individual Artist Fellowship.

Rosing’s work is held in public and private collections internationally including Northwestern Mutual, Science Museum of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin Collection. She is represented by Kim Storage Gallery in Milwaukee, and Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis. Rosing earned an MFA in painting and drawing from Northern Illinois University and lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin.

My paintings and immersive sculptural installations explore ecological processes within forests and watersheds—the carbon and water cycles, increasingly disrupted by climate extremes, intensifying weather patterns, and atmospheric disturbances that threaten these ecosystems. Like Arthur Dove, who fused natural phenomena with abstract forms, I cultivate an abstract visual language from both visible forms and invisible ecological processes as I understand them—merging the visible and the invisible.

My immersive installations create spaces where suspended tree-like sculptures invite viewers to navigate among towering, delicate forms to experience the fragility of forest ecosystems. I work with a variety of fibers including linen gauze and cotton cheesecloth, using techniques that vary by project: burning and charring white gauze with a candle flame, printing large-scale cyanotypes on cheesecloth, painting with India ink, beading, and embroidery. I use black as a symbol of carbon and life, white as the absence of life. India ink, made from burned particulates, becomes a literal symbol of carbon sequestered by living trees but released when burned.

In my paintings, I draw or write inscriptions in wet paint referencing unseen ecological processes and microscopic life forms. Densely layered color often obscures these marks, embedding them in richly textured surfaces like the hidden life and forces in the natural world. These layered surfaces reveal and conceal what’s breaking apart and what persists beyond perception—forces we sense but cannot fully see. Saturated color and contrast set the emotional tone in the work, expressing the tension between ecological grief and sheer joy in the profound beauty of these ecosystems.

At a time when climate science is being silenced, artists must amplify these urgent realities through visceral and immersive experiences. My work offers viewers a space to confront what we face—and what we might still protect.