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Label TextMattingly’s photographs reimagine the classic genres of still-life and landscape photography through an ecological lens. The photographs from the “…There Is Still Poetry” series are incisive critiques of contemporary mining practices as well as poetic meditations on photography as a material practice. Taken in the artist’s studio, the background image of this scene is a panoramic view depicting Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, next to which is the controversial Daneros Uranium Mine, which sits on public lands. A plan that calls for the increase of the mine from 4.5 acres to 46 acres and the trucking of millions of tons of uranium through Bears Ears has faced legal challenges from conservation groups and the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition, a consortium of the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe , Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribe, since 2018. In the foreground of the image, Mattingly includes samples of ore and soil from the area, signifying the transformation of the land into a commodity. A cluster of spent shell casings and parts from Army transport trucks reference the military infrastructure being constructed in the region. Additionally, the artist displays a quotation from Samuel Beckett’s novel Unnamable: “It’s because there is nothing or because I have no eyes.” This sentiment is a reflection on perception—more specifically, how the land is viewed as a resource from which value must be extracted. Mattingly’s photograph functions as a poetic meditation on sight and what photographs reveal (and conceal). “Photography connects me to my own ethical contradictions, and they are invisible at first. I think about the toxic legacies of the materials involved, the extractive supply chains, the health and environmental costs I may not see but live within. And yet, it’s also memory, culture, story. In the studio, I try to hold both truths. Every image becomes a negotiation between reverence and responsibility. In a world saturated with pictures, how can each photograph still carry weight?”

Mattingly’s “…There Is Still Poetry” series provides a contemporary response to the historical tradition of landscape photography from the 19th to early 20th century, which featured idealized depictions of the American landscape that reinforced the idea of manifest destiny and the necessity of westward expansion. By the mid-20th centurya new generation of ecologically minded photographers including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston (both held in DMAC’s collections) depicted the beauty of the American landscape as part of their argument for ecological preservation. Mattingly’s practice represents a conceptual turn in this history, in which the evocation of the landscape occurs within the artist’s studio and in which the process of photographic reproduction itself is incorporated into the environmental critique.
DimensionsSheet: 37 x 36 in. (94 x 91.4 cm)
Image: 29 3/8 x 30 in. (74.6 x 76.2 cm)
Accession Number 2026.5
Classificationsphotograph
SignedMary Mattingly (verso l,r, black ink)
InscriptionsFrom Bears Ears to Daneros Mine, 2018 AP1 (verso l,r, black ink)
Portfolio/Series...There Is Still Poetry
ProvenanceArtist; Laura Burkhalter [gift of the previous, 2018]; Des Moines Art Center [gift of the previous, 2026]
Between Bears Ears and Daneros Mine, from the series "…There Is Still Poetry"
Image Not Available for Between Bears Ears and Daneros Mine, from the series "…There Is Still Poetry"