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ELEMENTAL by Jan Tomlinson Master
ELEMENTAL
An Exhibition by Jan Tomlinson Master
April 25th, 2025 – July 11th, 2025
Natural History Institute Art Gallery
126 N. Marina St. Prescott, AZ
As an artist rooted in Florida—a state on the front lines of climate change and rapid development—Jan Tomlinson Master creates work that explores the fragile intersections of nature and humanity. Through site-specific installations that are delicately balanced, suspended, or held in tension, she brings attention to the intricate relationships in the natural and human worlds.
In ELEMENTAL, Master uses natural materials such as wood and grasses sourced from both the Mogollon Highlands and her home state of Florida. These installations reflect her deep engagement with the environmental challenges facing both regions, including water quality, habitat loss, and the long-term impact of fire and drought.
This exhibition marks a return to Prescott, where Master completed a residency at Yavapai College in 2005, creating work in response to the devastating fires in the Prescott National Forest. Nearly two decades later, ELEMENTAL offers a meditative continuation—an artistic call for awareness, balance, and healing between the natural and built worlds.
Grand Opening Reception: Friday, April 25th, 2025, from 5pm to 7pm
4th Friday Art Walks: April 25th, May 23rd, June 27th from 5pm to 7pm
Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm
Jan Tomlinson Master is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who works in craft, installation, text, and public art. She studied architecture and sociology at Clemson University before receiving an undergraduate degree in Art from Stetson University and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Delaware. Master divides her time between St. Augustine and Welaka, Florida, on the St. Johns River.
As a public artist she has collaborated to design and fabricate projects in Florida for Art in Public Places Jacksonville, Bird Island Park in Ponte Vedra, and for the Visitors Center in St. Augustine. In 2015 she was included in the Compassionate St. Augustine Obelisk Art 450 as one of 25 artists to embellish an obelisk and was chosen to travel to sister city Aviles, Spain to represent OA450 in the event Noche Blanca. Her obelisk in St. Augustine has been donated to the new tag Children’s Museum.
Her installations have been included in exhibitions across the country. In the gallery setting, Master uses an art practice that seeks to find healing in the intersection of art and nature. She builds site-specific installations that are balanced, held by tension, hung, or stacked to form groupings as an allegory for ‘delicately balanced’ relationships in the natural and human worlds. The sculptural installations are configured of the nature-made secured or juxtaposed with the man-made. She investigates themes of memory, resilience, introspection, environmental issues, and the symbolism of botanical design. The show Outside/Inside at Yavapai College in 2005 was her response to wildfires in the Prescott National Forest.
