Providence Mountains

About the Item: Artist's Statement: "In no other landscape are humans more directly confronted with the magnitude of geological time than in deserts." –The Mojave Project Across the valley, below lava flows of Wild Horse Mesa, there are ancient granitic and metamorphic rocks of Pre-Cambrian age (2 billion years). The history of the Providence Mountains, however, is full of gaps – periods of tens even hundreds of millions of years during which we only know that Erosion happened. erosion reduced the mountains to low lands that were covered by a shallow sea 650 million years ago. Rocks along the Providence Mountains Range are so deformed and altered by intrusive bodies of hot granitic magma during the development of these ancient mountains. Between 500-400 million years ago, mineral deposits of iron ore, gold, silver and lead were formed within magma intrusions. About 50 miles long and more than 7,000 feet high, the Providence Mountain are a result of recent uplift along the East Providence Fault, over 10 million years. BIO BRITNEY PENOUILH (b. New Orleans, LA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose interest in geology and natural environments has greatly influenced her work. In 2010, Penouilh earned a double major Fine Art Studio and Geology from the University of New Orleans. Through university studies in New Orleans, Greece, and Japan and artist residencies in New York, North Carolina, Alaska and California – and her interest in geology, Penouilh’s work connects landscape to ritual, and ties the spiritual realm to the scientific. In 2018-19, Penouilh worked with National Park Services on a residency within the Mojave National Preserve. Penouilh was recently a visiting artist at Pilgrim School in Los Angeles, CA where she taught interdisciplinary art to high school 3-D art students. This program included a geology field trip to collect minerals that students cast into plaster sculptures. Penouilh currently resides in Los Angeles, where she divides her time between teaching and creating art in her downtown studio.