ARLINGTON, VA.- Inspired by the Joni Mitchell song, “Big Yellow Taxi” where “they paved paradise and they put up a parking lot,” Artisphere's visual art exhibition Beyond the Parking Lot will motivate the viewer to think how we have used and deserted the land that surrounds us in our everyday life. These scarred landscapes covered in pavement— be it vacated buildings, parking lots and roadways—are found across the United States. Do we have the obligation to return our landscape back to its original condition?

Curated by Artisphere Visual Arts Curator Cynthia Connolly, this exhibit shows contemporary landscapes by nine artists from throughout the U.S. who are observing these changes, exposing the use of the environment in compromising ways through a variety of mediums. “Beyond the Parking Lot will instigate the discussion, ‘where do we go from here?’” says Connolly. “In this exhibit, we see how consumption has dramatically changed the American Landscape. The most prevalent issues in each artist's work are highlighted to invoke discussion of different environmental themes.”

On view from Friday, August 24 – Sunday, November 4, the public is invited to attend a free opening reception on Thursday, September 6 from 7-10pm. Exhibiting artists include:

Amanda Burnham (Baltimore, Maryland) makes drawings and drawing installations based on her explorations of and encounters with the city. She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland and is an Assistant Professor at Towson University with BA and MFA degrees from Harvard and Yale.

Maya Ciarrocchi (New York, New York) is a video artist who held an onsite residency in Artisphere’s Works In Progress Gallery last fall, filming her new media work I’m Nobody, Who Are You? Her work has been exhibited at places such as Chashama, the Chocolate Factory, School of Visual Arts, Westbeth Gallery and Sasha Wolf Gallery. She earned a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts.

Julia Christensen (Oberlin, Ohio) is an artist who works in video, photography, networked media, writing, sound arts, sculpture, installation and performance. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Integrated Media in the Studio Art Department at Oberlin College, where she also serves on the faculties of Environmental Studies and TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts).

Richard Crozier (Charlottesville, Virginia) is an Emeritus Professor for the University of Virginia's McIntire Department of Art. He first began teaching at the University of Virginia in 1974 and tenured in 1980. He received his B.F.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and went on to earn an M.F.A. from the University of California at Davis.

Frank Hallam Day (Washington, DC) is the 2012 winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Prize and the 2006 Bader Prize, as well as numerous other grants, prizes and commissions. His work is in domestic and international museum collections, including the Berlin State Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts. He is represented locally by Addison/Ripley Fine Art, and is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art this fall.

Gregory Euclide (Le Sueur, Minnesota) is an artist and teacher living in the Minnesota River Valley. His work has recently been featured at MASS MoCA, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Toledo Museum of Art, and is currently on view in the solo exhibition Nature Out There at the Nevada Museum of Art. Euclide was a recipient of the 2011-12 Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Emerging Artists. He received his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His work is featured on the 2012 Grammy Award winning album covers of the musical group Bon Iver.

Alex Lukas (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) creates highly detailed drawings and intricate ‘zines, booklets and prints. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His drawings have been exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Stockholm and Copenhagen as well as in the pages of Megawords Magazine, DWELL and Juxtapoz amongst others.

Rachel Sitkin’s (Baltimore, Maryland) work revolves around the evolving relationship between humans and the landscape. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and MFA from American University.

Trevor Young (Washington, DC) is a painter whose images of transient “non-places” are uneasy amalgamations. He cobbles together these paintings from his own memories of road trips, photographs, and pure invention, and renders with a sense of atmosphere and drama seemingly at odds with his use of hard lines and simple geometric shapes.