Tyrone Geter has no interest in creating work that shouts. Though politically minded, the Elgin-based artist steers away from flashy statements, believing instead that art is more successful in generating change if it expresses a familiar posture, encouraging viewers to contemplate their role in a common human family.

“I learned a long time ago, just screaming at people through art doesn’t work,” he said.

One of Geter’s most recent collections of human-centered artwork examines the disturbing truth of climate change and its impact on the most vulnerable demographic: children. These pieces make up “Brave New World,” a solo exhibition of his work that will be on view at Redux Contemporary Art Center from March 29 to May 18.

The work in “Brave New World” began to take shape for Geter after a trip to Nigeria, where it was clear how much more difficult climate change’s effects would make the lives of children who are already struggling to exist.

The impact on children

“I kept wondering – what’s going to happen to these kids if we don’t do something? I mean, it’s bad enough what’s happening to kids right now. These kids are gonna be in serious trouble, and probably Black kids will be worse off than most, and especially African (kids),” he said.

The mixed-media and charcoal drawings and sculptural installations that will be exhibited show children interacting with the natural world from a position of both peril and power. In Geter’s work, nature is unruly and fierce, but children adapt to possess supernatural agency, working with the weather instead of against it.

“In any kind of earth-shattering thing, in order to survive, they have to adapt,” said Geter. “So I got to thinking, what if these kids adapted, but what if they did it in a completely different way?”

Connected to nature

It’s a conceptual reframing of the inevitable loss of power that children will face as they are forced to shoulder the consequences of older generations’ mistreatment of the earth, he said.

“Kids are connected to nature,” he said of the pieces. “One kid is connected to trees, things like that … another kid is in control of fire and wind. Not scary things, because I never thought nature was scary. And I never thought nature was out to get us. She’s putting things back in order so the world can survive, even if we kill ourselves off.”

Geter hopes the pieces will spark a sense of tenderness that encourages people to become more climate-minded.

“What I’m trying to do now is pretty much shame and scare them – (see) what will happen to your children when you’re not there,” he said. “It’s a loneliness that they’re faced with. I think if I can get parents to see that, maybe it might bring a different kind of help.”

Appealing to emotions

This form of activism, the sort that makes a subtle, yet poignant, appeal to the emotions, is something that Geter has honed in his art for years, partly due to a sense of duty his mother instilled in him. She played a pivotal role in fostering Geter’s talent during his childhood in Alabama and Ohio, and also throughout his college years, often undergoing personal sacrifice to support him.

“My mother had a hard life, really hard, but she was determined that I would be educated,” he said.

Watching him paint one afternoon, she asked a simple question: “Who is it going to help?” This query became embedded deep in his consciousness and is present each time he approaches creating a new piece of art.

“The big thing I try to do in my art, the first thing I try to do, is make sure that if it’s a simple portrait you cannot walk past my work without feeling,” said Geter. “I think what our world today, what our country has done, is treat us as if we are all loners, like we don’t owe anybody else anything. And I couldn’t live with that kind of attitude.”

While change is something that Geter hopes to enact through his work, he isn’t prescriptive about how all artists should create, or the so-called “point” of art, believing that as long as the work is true to the artists’ experience of life, it will be influential.

With “Brave New World,” Geter’s ambition is to touch something in the viewer that they can link back to their own experience, sparking a renewed sense of protection for the planet and its children.

His only artist rule: Never re-create what has already been done.

“I spent a lifetime trying not to copy,” he said.

Caption:

Tyrone Geter’s exhibit “Brave New World” will be on display March 29-May 18 at Redux Contemporary Art Center.

Tyrone Geter/Provided

Tyrone Geter’s piece “Peace Be Unto You.”

Tyrone Geter/Provided

Tyrone Geter’s piece “Broken Wing.”

Tyrone Geter/Provided