Bryce Lafferty

When most people think about nature, they only think about what’s above the ground. But Bryce Lafferty, an artist and educator based in Jacksonville, Alabama, goes deeper — literally. Working with watercolors, he creates cross-sections that crack the landscape open, revealing its inner workings. The resulting imagery is both technical and fanciful; it would fare equally well in a textbook or a fairytale. “My watercolor drawings emerge as poetic expressions of my wonderment for the natural world,” Lafferty writes in his artist’s statement. “They provide a surreal, emotional, and ineffable response to overwhelming beauty.” Through late October, new works by Lafferty will be on display at Momentum Gallery on Broadway. Work by two other member artists — Georgia’s Michael Barringer, a multimedia abstract painter and drawer, and Florida’s Amy Gross, who makes botanical-inspired fiber sculptures — are also on display. In keeping with the ecological motifs, six contemporary artists have prepared work for Nature Interrupted. According to a press statement, the group show prompts “conversation about mankind’s effect on ecosystems, the introduction of invasive plants, and the disruption of the natural world.”