Vaughn Bell is an artist whose work focuses on the complexities and paradoxes of human interactions with places, natural forces and other species. At the moment she is particularly interested in plant ecology and plant communities, kelp forests and shellfish in the waters of the coastal Pacific Northwest of the United States, rivers and streams in urban areas, and climate change adaptation and resilience in multi-species worlds. She likes especially to talk to botanists, biologists, ecologists, landscape architects, anthropologists and of course other artists.
Recent exhibitions have included installations in Brussels, Buenos Aires, and Paris. Since 2018, she has been working with horticulturalists at Kew Gardens on an exhibition for 2021. In addition to exhibiting works at museums and institutions, she often works in the public realm on artworks rooted in local communities and ecologies. Vaughn has created commissions for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Edith Russ Site for New Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Plant in King County, WA, the Hermitage of San Bartolomeo in Abruzzo, Italy, and others.
Vaughn was recently commissioned to create a Public Art Master Plan for Seattle Public Utilities Drainage and Wastewater, which was a work of community engagement, research and collaboration over a two-year period. Additionally, in the past Vaughn worked as staff artist in the Seattle Department of Transportation on integrating public art into transportation infrastructure. She continues to work on integrating art into infrastructure, especially in drainage, wastewater, and the right-of-way.
Vaughn often consults and lectures on topics related to public art and environmental art. She is also a part-time faculty in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Tacoma, where she teaches and has developed curriculum on public art, ecological art and creative practices. Her work has been featured in Artnews, Afterimage, Arcade Journal, and Public Art Review as well as numerous other publications. It was also featured in The New Earthwork: Art Action Agency, from ISC Press and Art and Ecology Now by Andrew Brown from Thames and Hudson.
Vaughn received her MFA from the Studio for Inter-related Media at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA and her undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, RI. Vaughn comes from a childhood spent in Tidewater Virginia and the Northeast United States, with forays to be with family in the American Midwest. She now lives and works in the watersheds of Longfellow Creek and the Duwamish River, where they meet the Salish Sea, on the Unceded Ancestral Lands of the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish) people in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Recent exhibitions have included installations in Brussels, Buenos Aires, and Paris. Since 2018, she has been working with horticulturalists at Kew Gardens on an exhibition for 2021. In addition to exhibiting works at museums and institutions, she often works in the public realm on artworks rooted in local communities and ecologies. Vaughn has created commissions for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Edith Russ Site for New Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Plant in King County, WA, the Hermitage of San Bartolomeo in Abruzzo, Italy, and others.
Vaughn was recently commissioned to create a Public Art Master Plan for Seattle Public Utilities Drainage and Wastewater, which was a work of community engagement, research and collaboration over a two-year period. Additionally, in the past Vaughn worked as staff artist in the Seattle Department of Transportation on integrating public art into transportation infrastructure. She continues to work on integrating art into infrastructure, especially in drainage, wastewater, and the right-of-way.
Vaughn often consults and lectures on topics related to public art and environmental art. She is also a part-time faculty in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Tacoma, where she teaches and has developed curriculum on public art, ecological art and creative practices. Her work has been featured in Artnews, Afterimage, Arcade Journal, and Public Art Review as well as numerous other publications. It was also featured in The New Earthwork: Art Action Agency, from ISC Press and Art and Ecology Now by Andrew Brown from Thames and Hudson.
Vaughn received her MFA from the Studio for Inter-related Media at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA and her undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, RI. Vaughn comes from a childhood spent in Tidewater Virginia and the Northeast United States, with forays to be with family in the American Midwest. She now lives and works in the watersheds of Longfellow Creek and the Duwamish River, where they meet the Salish Sea, on the Unceded Ancestral Lands of the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish) people in Seattle, Washington, USA.
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