SANIBEL, FLORIDA – Daydreaming, an exhibit by Niki Butcher will be on display at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge from November 1, 2024 – January 30, 2025.
Niki’s new exhibit will be featuring over 60 images created over five decades. Daydreaming: Niki Butcher’s Hand-Painted Photography invites you to see the historical, beautiful, and sometimes quirky aspects of our world through the eyes of a thoughtful optimist. Niki has focused her camera on the fading facades of old Florida, capturing funky ‘mom & pop’ wayside businesses, lonesome sandy beaches, and the beauty of the Everglades. Remembering the gentle feeling of old Florida postcards, Niki hand paints her black and white photographs in vibrant tones and pastel hues.
Starting from the tonally blank canvas of a black and white photograph, artist Niki Butcher adds color to present the world from a “Daydreaming…” perspective. Through her photography, Niki captures places and people that stand out as beautiful, unique, endangered, and authentic. Yet what sets her work apart is her use of color. She breathes life and imagination into these photographed scenes, creating a picture of life far beyond what a camera could capture. Visit Daydreaming and experience a view of the world that adds a bit more color, a good dose of humor, and an infusion of positivity.
Clyde will be mounting a special exhibition: The American Everglades as part of the Refuge’s 75th-anniversary celebration November 13, 2019, through February 5, 2020.
This expansive wilderness collection represents the many years Clyde spent exploring the remote regions of the Everglades, experiencing its changes. It is a diverse and complex territory which reveals its beauty in many ways. His photographs reveal wild and natural places where few humans have ventured, and the images capture remarkable solitude and wonder.
The Everglades is one of the largest wetlands in the world and the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Shaped and sustained by seasonally flowing shallow water, the Everglades is home to dozens of threatened and endangered species, massive flocks of wading birds, recovering populations of alligators, crocodiles, and millions of insects. Exceptional for its diverse combination of rich plant and wildlife communities, varied habitats, and remote wilderness, the Everglades has perhaps most importantly become a beacon for conservation.
“Clyde Butcher’s remarkable photographs give us access to nature we rarely see or experience. They not only reveal the intimate and majestic beauty of the Everglades–and the need to save this fragile environment–they also remind us of the abiding kinship we mortals share when we work together to preserve these magnificent places. Butcher’s art is a national treasure.” –Ken Burns, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker
Meet Clyde Butcher for the public opening November 13, 10:oo am-12:00 pm. Clyde will be giving two lectures on January 24, 10:00 am and 1:00 pm.