Elizabeth Weber
Elizabeth Weber is an independent documentary photographer whose work focuses on environmental issues. Whether through personal projects or for nonprofit work, Elizabeth’s images look at both environmental degradation and rejuvenation. It is her belief that by sharing these stories, new hope can be born in the face of the climate crisis. Elizabeth is from California, currently living in Santa Barbara.
Elizabeth’s work on marine debris is currently on display at the Hawai’i Wildlife Discovery Center on Maui, and her work on the western monarch butterfly is currently on display at the Bolinas Museum.
Artist’s Statement
Growing up on the northern California coast, in the 1970’s and 80’s, Elizabeth remembers the abundance of monarchs that came to our groves to overwinter each year. Their magic is woven throughout her childhood memories. Monarchs beg us to look up, to delight, and to fall in love. To fall in love with the mystery and beauty that nature offers us each day.
An Homage to Western Monarch Butterflies is both an expression of reverence and a call to remember the monarchs’ plight as it nears extinction. Habitat loss, overuse of pesticides, and climate change have all contributed to its’ decline. Western monarchs have seen a 95% decline since the 1980’s.
An Homage to Western Monarch Butterflies marries documentary photographs and writing with an ethereal aesthetic. The process of printing in black and white on vellum paper and adding gold leaf, creates a physical aesthetic that suggests the fragility of monarchs, speaking to both the fragility of their habitat and the fragility of their existence. It also expresses a feeling of reverence. By removing their magnificent color, that they are known by, Elizabeth is asking the viewer to look at them in a new way and to think about what it would mean to lose them from our world.
