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Meet Regan Rosburg

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Regan Rosburg.

Regan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I guess it started as far back as being a little kid. I always knew I wanted to be an artist, on some level… I was always drawing, designing, and observing. I went to school at CU Boulder to study biology but ended up struggling with the memorization and stamina needed for that degree. I walked into the art building one day and changed my major to art, and that was it.

Funny enough, I ended up painting things that interested me in the biological world… I even started traveling to far off places by myself so that I could experience biologically diverse species first-hand. My travels took me to islands in Indonesia and Thailand first, and then Costa Rica, Mexico, the Bahamas, Canada (including Nova Scotia), the Pacific Northwest Coast and forests, and most recently Svalbard, Norway. Every place I have been has yielded information about the landscape, history, diversity, and evolution of the species.

Along the way, however, my love for the natural world was shaken with increasing evidence of pollution and waste. I could not look away from the reality. I returned to graduate school determined to change my work, and I ended up looking at my work from an EcoPsychological standpoint. That has made all of the difference, allowing me to move seamlessly through both the reality of technology and manic consumption, society’s collective grief, and the inherant beauty and brilliance of the natural world. That last one is where I choose to focus my energy today… I am once again in love with nature, having come full circle in my research and travels.

Has it been a smooth road?
I had struggled for a while for people to listen to me about climate change and pollution. I found that there was a lot of cognitive dissonance up until a few years ago when storms began to worsen and fires raged around the globe. It seemed that people wanted to put me into a category of “tree-hugger” or “hippee” or some other “soft” description. The truth is that it is very much the opposite. To look into this kind of subject, and to have a strong opinion and fight for the survival of species on Earth, takes quite a bit of stamina and courage.

That said, at times, it has been emotionally, physically and psychologically exhausting. When I talk about the climate changes and protecting species, I am casting a wide net over a very complicated set of interacting factors that are CONSTANTLY changing. It involves research of ecosystems and understanding how they fit into the increasingly fragmented/interconnected lifestyle decisions of human beings. It involves social study, psychological study, and historical context.

Also, sometimes (I’ll be honest) it has been a challenge to remain positive in the face of what I have researched and seen. I went through a very dark phase with my work a couple of years ago — my work was literally black for about five years. I was fixated on what we face as human beings, how much damage we have done, how much carbon dioxide continues to burn (and how challenging it will be to re-absorb that carbon), how far the plastic has reached in the world’s oceans, how warped the collective thinking has had to have been to get us here.

Organisms adapt to changing systems.; they are built to take advantage of spaces that have been left as vacuums. Charles Darwin outlined this in his hypothesis of the origin of species, where he argued that only the luckiest, strongest and most capable would survive to pass on their DNA. With our access to information and technology, along with free will, one would think that our better angels would bring us back from the brink. The quandry is that we also are living in an age of misinformation, addictions of a hundred forms sold to us daily, and busy lives that keep us suspended in place. We are part of the machine that is destroying the planet — and it seems that as much as we want to take the machine apart with one hand, we are still quickly building it with the other.

What keeps me going is that I keep falling in love with nature, and expanding my capacity for empathy as widely as possible. I have moved into a place of equanimity and balance, which allows me to feel much lighter than ever before. I have let go of the idea that I need to change the world… all I can do is my best, personally. The echoes of my actions are real, but they are out of my control.

We’d love to hear more about your art.
I am known for my three-dimensional resin paintings. In them, I imbed skulls, bones, insects and painted flowers. I am also a photographer, writer and installation artist. I am also proud of my new installations that use recycled plastic. Check out my website for more images!

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love the art, the food, the parks, the nature, the vibe, the talks, the vicinity to the mountains, RedLine, galleries, and (personally) being near my family!

I absolutely hate the dating scene here… too much Axe Body Spray, beard oil, wing sauce, and lavender bitters… and too little communication skills, levity and humility.

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