Under the Sheltering Sky

Produced in partnership with DATMA and the New Bedford Free Public Library, the New Bedford Art Museum presents Under The Sheltering Sky.

Under The Sheltering Sky explores cultural narratives about nature and provides context on the life and legacy of John James Audubon. Designed to spark conversations among viewers and connect the City of New Bedford's historic art collection to important topics of current interest, the exhibition inspired by DATMA’s 2023 shelter theme juxtaposes Audubon’s 19th century prints with examples of contemporary art by Adrian Brandon, Andrea Cukier, Wardell Milan and William White. 

John J. Audubon

Artist Bio
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John James Audubon
Purple Martin, 1832
Hand colored engraving
New Bedford Free Public Library, gift of James Arnold, 1866

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John James Audubon
Ferruginous Thrush, 1832
Hand colored engraving
New Bedford Free Public Library, gift of James Arnold, 1866

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John James Audubon
American Robin, 1832
Hand colored engraving
New Bedford Free Public Library, gift of James Arnold, 1866

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John James Audubon
Nuttalls’ Lesser-Marsh Wren, 1832
Hand colored engraving
New Bedford Free Public Library, gift of James Arnold, 1866

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John James Audubon
Hermit Thrush, 1832
Hand colored engraving
New Bedford Free Public Library, gift of James Arnold, 1866

Adrian Brandon

Artist Statement
Artist Statement

These three illustrations were commissioned by the Audubon Society to augment an essay by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham, titled “What Do We Do About John James Audubon?”. Both Lanham and I explore legacy, identity and accountability by confronting the truth behind the work and the character of John James Audubon. As we continue to praise Audubon’s role in conservationism, we must maintain a critical lens to the social and political landscapes surrounding his work and focus on the marginalized communities who are often painted over in American history.
Artist Bio
Adrian Brandon

Adrian Brandon is an artist from Seattle, WA and is based in Brooklyn, NY. He works in various media, including but not limited to digital, paint and ink. Adrian creates art that broadens the narrative of the Black experience and touches on themes of pride, peace and protest. His most prominent body of work is the Stolen series. The series is a collection of portraits highlighting Black lives taken by the hands of the police. Stolen explores themes of grief, time and the unknown.
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Adrian Brandon
Great Egret, 2021
Digital Illustration

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Adrian Brandon
Carolina Parakeet, 2021
Digital Illustration

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Adrian Brandon
Black-necked Stilt, 2021
Digital Illustration

Andrea Cukier

Artist Statement
Artist Statement

As a nature loving artist, bird-watcher and biology nerd, my source of inspiration is the natural world, its endless beauty and the anxiety produced by its destruction inflicted by humans. In this Birding Collages series, I simultaneously painted, drew and collaged using hand-made papers and water-based media. The process of cutting and pasting minute pieces of paper that I had previously painted has been slow and painstaking. The idea is to evoke the birding experience: its joys and frustrations; its awe sensation when in nature. A few of these pieces have identifiable birds. Others, just like in the birding experience, look ambiguous, their species is not so clear or are behind leaves. They are birds of my imagination. The viewer's experience, I hope, will be one of patient observation and joy, just like the experience of bird watching.
Artist Bio
Andrea Cukier

Andrea Cukier is a visual artist and educator from Argentina. She has lived and worked in New York City since 1998. Ms. Cukier holds an MFA in Illustration from SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology. She also has a degree as Profesora Superior de Pintura, from Argentina (accredited as a dual master’s degree in Fine Arts and Art Education). Her works were selected for New York’s First Biennale of Women Artists at WAH Center in Brooklyn. She had solo shows at Pratt Institute, The Argentine Consulate in New York City, Columbia University, The New York Public Library, The Bidwell House Museum in MA, and Local Project Gallery, among others.Throughout her career she has taught studio art and art history and has participated in several art projects for special education. She was awarded three times with the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Grant to Individual Artists, and has participated at several artist in residency programs, including VCCA and MASS MoCA. Andrea Cukier’s work is in the permanent collection of The Godwin Ternbach Museum, The Argentine Consulate in New York City, Sloan Kettering Memorial Collection, and in private collections in the United States, France, Japan, Holland, Australia, Argentina, and England.
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Andrea Cukier
From the Perspective of the Thrush on the Bush, 2023
Mixed media on paper (painting and collage)

Andrea Cukier Calandria in the Fields LR

Andrea Cukier
Calandria in the Fields, 2023
Mixed media on paper (painting and collage)

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Andrea Cukier
Dialogue, 2023
Mixed media on paper (painting and collage)

Andrea Cukier Looking up LR

Andrea Cukier
Looking Up, 2023
Mixed media on paper (painting and collage)

Andrea Cukier Diptych with Brown Thrasher LR

Andrea Cukier
Diptych with Brown Thrasher and Other Wonders, 2023
Mixed media on paper (painting and collage)

Wardell Milan

Artist Statement
Artist Statement

Building upon a conceptual foundation in photography, Wardell Milan’s practice encompasses drawing, collage, and painting to explore ideas of the body, beauty, and the unconscious. His multi-media works often reference and incorporate the imagery of artists such as Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and Eugene Richards. Through cut-paper and collage techniques, he constructs striking human subjects with reclaimed photographic elements, contending with the medium’s visual lineage and its claims to representation. These composite, fragmented figures inhabit ambiguous landscapes of painted abstraction, navigating themselves through recontextualized historical and contemporary environments. Through them, the body—the physical, the psychological, and the photographic body—is understood as a multi-faceted, intersecting site of gender, race, sexuality, and history.
Artist Bio
Wardell Milan

Throughout his practice, Milan sustains a thoughtful inquiry into the nature of beauty and the unconscious, touching on topics such as body modification and gender performance. His most recent series, Parisian Landscapes, explores the duality between marginalization and freedom of expression, imagining paces where the marginalized body is able to express itself and move about the world freely.
His most recent group of significant works on paper, two approximately six- by eight-foot drawings (both 2018) present dynamic groups of enigmatic individuals cast within idyllic scenery, which the artist animates with an architectural swirl of geometric patterning. In making these works, Milan also takes a journey through the history of photography – invoking Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nobuyoshi Araki, Gordon Parks, Garry Winogrand, and others – seeking out compositional ideas and physiognomic cues in an array of iconic imagery. Milan’s collages often incorporate cut out photographs, including iconic work by Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe as well as Charles Hoff.
Milan studied photography at the University of Tennessee and Yale University. Works by the artist can be found in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum, New York, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; UBS Art Collection; Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation, Paris; Hall Art Foundation; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Milan lives and works in New York.
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Wardell Milan
Miss Floral Pageant, 2015
Digital C-print mounted on Dibond

William White

Artist Bio
William White

My name is Bill White and I do woodcarving. I was born in 1954. My father was a graduate of Swain School of Design and always encouraged me with all kinds of art. Growing up in the town of Lakeville I was always exposed to nature and animals of many kinds because we raised many different types of animals. As I grew older I merged the two interests doing many sketches of all the things I was interested in. At age 16 I evolved to giving some shape and definition to my art by doing simple relief carvings on wood. I became an arborist graduating from University of MA Stockbridge School of Agriculture. After many years of tree work I had an injury and became a meat cutter. I also spent 20 years with Home Depot mostly running their garden area. Now I am the Custodian at City Hall and care for the outside and inside of a great building.
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William White
Tree Sparrow, 2020
Hand-carved White Pine

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William White
Male Downy Woodpecker, 2019
Hand-carved White Pine

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William White
American Robin, 2021
Hand-carved White Pine