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.

I make paintings and immersive installations informed by experiences in the wilderness and research. Forests are my lens to climate, atmosphere, and the carbon and water cycles. Saturated color in the abstract symbolic paintings expresses the tension between ecological grief and sheer joy in their beauty, while the more somber tone of the monochrome installations articulates the anxiety I feel about the climate crisis.

Towering sculptures made of delicate fibers create spaces for viewers to experience the threats facing forest ecosystems. I use techniques like burning and charring with a candle, staining with India ink, cyanotype, and embroidery on linen and cotton gauze. In my installations, black symbolizes carbon and life, while white denotes the absence of life.

My paintings incorporate root-like lines drawn into the paint referencing unseen ecological connections and microscopic life. These marks are often buried beneath densely layered color and surface, like fragile, hidden ecological processes.