PAM LONGObardi | INSTAR
Exhibition Dates: June 21 - July 24, 2025
Reception: June 21, 2-5 pm
Sandler Hudson Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of INSTAR, a solo exhibition by renowned artist and environmental activist Pam Longobardi. The exhibition brings together two aspects of Longobardi’s practice: her outward-facing global collaborative social work through the Drifters Project and her deeply personal studio-based artistic production. On view are new abstract paintings on copper and paper film, as well as intricate micro-collages made from defunct global currencies.
This rare presentation focuses on Longobardi’s ongoing painting practice with works that exist in direct dialogue with her ocean-centric plastic installations. These paintings belong wholly to the same conceptual universe, employing the genre of landscape to explore the psychological tension between humans and the natural world. They evoke imagined futures shaped by environmental upheaval while pointing toward the endurance of nature beyond human impact. Longobardi describes the paintings as “an antidote to the plastic work, but entirely part of the Drifters Project,” adding that “wild nature always comes out on top.”
The exhibition’s title, INSTAR, refers to one of the five stages of metamorphosis in a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly. The term serves as a powerful metaphor for transformation and evolution.
Longobardi’s internationally recognized work has been featured in National Geographic, SIERRA Magazine, and the Weather Channel, and exhibited in major venues across the U.S. and Europe, including the Venice Biennale. Founder of the Drifters Project, Longobardi has removed tens of thousands of pounds of ocean plastic from coastlines and re-situated the materials as social sculpture. Longobardi’s work can be found in notable museum collections such as, Arizona State University Art Museum, Baker Museum (Artis-Naples), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Kennedy Art Museum, Knoxville Museum of Art, Maier Museum of Art, Miami Metropolitan Museum, Muzeum Mycopa, Nasher Museum of Art, Palmer Museum of Art (Penn State University), Tennessee State Museum, and Tweed Art Museum. She is the recipient of the prestigious Hudgens Prize and currently serves as Regents’ Professor at Georgia State University and Artist-In-Nature for the Oceanic Society. Longobardi’s work is included in public and private art collections worldwide.