I am an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn and Troy, New York. I work in a variety of media, from walks to WIFI to gardening, to reveal how human and nonhuman lives intertwine with other earth systems.
Born in rural Northern California, I went to college in Los Angeles, where I studied art and environmental science. After falling in love with biology field work, I began combining ecology with art. I relocated to New York City in 2005, and completed my MFA at Hunter College in the fall of 2009. I’m currently pursuing my PhD in Arts Practice, focusing on Public Fieldwork, urban ecology, and socially engaged art, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Elsewhere on the internet, I post on twitter & instagram, and I also send out a newsletter 4-6 times per year. You can check out the archive or sign up to get future updates.
Click here to view my C.V. (PDF).
Recent Writing
- My ongoing newsletter archive
- Reflections on the Urban Evolution of White Clover and Why Say Weed In the Anthropocene, Inhabiting the Anthropocene, Fall 2018
- Weedy Resistance: Multispecies Tactics for Contesting “The Age of Man”, Inhabiting the Anthropocene, May 2017.
- Invasive Pigments and Novel Hues: The Spectrum of an Urban Plant Community, Landscape Architecture Futures, November 2015 (screen res PDF)
- Feral Landscape Love: Novel Ecosystems in the Studio and the Street, Brooklyn Rail Social Ecologies Issue, November 2015
Recent Press
- Other Voices, Other Worlds, Stephen Zacks, Art in America, December 2018.
- “Trump’s EPA Is a Disaster, So These Artists Made Their Own”, Claire Voon, Vice Magazine, June 11, 2018.
- “A Solid Artistic Argument That We Should Replace EPA Leaders With Actual Weeds”, Kriston Capps, Washington City Paper, May 24, 2018.
- Painting with Invasive Pigments, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Front Matter Blog, January 2018
- Seeding the Next Epoch, Urban Omnibus, December 2017
- All Weeds are Welcome Here, Let it Grow magazine, October 2017.
- “Ecologies of Elsewhere: Giving Urban Weeds a ‘Third Glance’”, The Nature of Cities, Daniel Philips, September 2017.
- A Group Show Rooted in Weeds, Kate Sierzputowski for Hyperallergic, July 2017
- Radical Organizing with Weedy Resistance, Garden Collage, May 2017
- Alumnae/instructor profile for CUNY TV: Study with the Best, The Environment, January 29, 2017
- Open Fields: Big and Small Data Reinvented by Flies, Weeds, and Kisses, Regine Debatty, We Make Money Not Art, October 2016
- Extracting a Rainbow of Color from Invasive Plants, Hyperallergic review of Chroma Botanica by Seph Rodney, June 2016
- A Eulogy for the Weeds, We Make Money Not Art interview with Régine Debatty, May 2016
- An Ecologically Minded Artist Navigating the Nature-Culture Continuum, Hyperallergic interview with Ben Valentine, May 2016
- Capturing Nature’s Colors, article about Chroma Botanica by Gabrielle Afero for Our Town, May 2016
- Next Epoch Seed Library: An Interview with Anne Percoco and Ellie Irons by Milcah Bassel, Dime and Honey, May 2016
- For the Love of Immigrant Weeds, article by Dyani Sabin for Scienceline, January 2016
- A Sanctuary for Weeds: Social Ecologies at the Gallery at Industry City, article by Rebecca Smith for Art Critical, January 2016
- An Atlas of Endangered Surfaces: A Conversation between Ellie Irons and Christopher Kennedy, Temporary Art Review, January 2016
- The “Endangered” Surfaces of Hunters Point South, article about Chance Ecologies by Ben Pardee, Urban Ominbus, October 2015