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Tempest IV and V are magnificent pieces of art by D.C. area artist Kate Kretz that focus on the chaos and doom associated with extreme weather. The pieces were created by etching images of extreme weather, in this case images of tornados onto antique spoons. Kretz’s art often depicts scenes of doom as she is inspired by “nightmares featuring weather imagery specifically several tornadoes hovering on the horizon.” Kretz did not have a specific tornado in mind, but rather used what she knew about tornados and her vivid nightmares when making the piece.
While both Tempest IV and V depict tornados, they focus on different aspects of tornados and highlight different emotions. Tempest IV shows a long, thin tornado shooting out from abstract clouds and rapidly approaching a rural farm. The tornado is almost elegant and in many ways the scene is calm. The farm is still tranquil and there is a sense that the inhabitants have no idea of the doom to come. The abstract clouds provide a feeling of foreboding and the elegant tornado is the manifestation of this waiting evil. Tempest V shows a much different scene. The tornado in this piece is fat and not clearly defined, blending in to the clouds above. The scene is also set in an urban area, and the main feature of the piece is the tornado tearing apart the electric lines. Tempest V has contact between the disaster and humanity and there is no sense of foreboding because the doom has arrived, but in its place are chaos and destruction. It is interesting to note that the “canvas” of the pieces are antique spoons which provides interesting depth to the pieces. The curvature of the bowl of the spoon makes the image have motion and feel dynamic. The color of the spoons also has a great affect on the pieces because the entire image is just different shades of grey. This adds to the negative emotions of the image and makes both images feel as if everything is tarnished and doomed.
Kretz says that extreme weather events have come to symbolize in her mind unpredictability and anxiety associated with dysfunctional family relationships. This notion comes through strongly in her pieces, but as a historian looking through the lens of disaster to me the piece represents much more. This piece is a visual representation of how disaster is a human social construction. Tempest IV shows a tornado in the distance and the main emotion that the piece evokes is a sense of foreboding. There is no anxiety about what the tornado is doing to the non-human sphere, but only a sense of foreboding about what will happen when the tornado makes contact with the human world. In Tempest V the tornado is presently destroying the human world and their is a vivid sense of present evil. Disasters are not a disaster unless they come into contact with the human sphere, it is our reaction to them that makes them a disaster, and thus the whole idea of disaster is a social construction.
The piece also can be used to make a more tornado specific argument: even though tornados occur on a much smaller scale than many other disasters, their devastation is so enormous and all encompassing to those affected that tornados should be a high priority in disaster relief efforts. Tempest V shows how small of an area that a tornado effects, part of a town and its power lines are being completely destroyed while the other half of town is unaffected. It also shows the complete and total nature of the destruction cause by the area affected by the tornado and all the pain and anxieties that those affected feel.
Overall, Tempest IV and V are fascinating pieces that are interesting and provocative to view.