Jordan Tierney
Date:
2025
Medium:
Carved and burned scrap plywood, river textiles, river trinkets

Jordan Tierney’s artistic practice involves a daily pilgrimage to the urban streams and forests buffers of Baltimore, surrendering to whatever the Jones Falls watershed decides to teach her. By observing the struggling environment and collecting flotsam and jetsam she finds in the streams, she builds a story of the near-future. Rather than amplify her grief and rage about climate collapse and social injustice, she imagines a culture based on reverence for a beautifully complex ecosystem. Believing a healthy culture grows from the soil up, Tierney fabricates her work from what she can find on foot. Her sculptures encourage us to imagine new stories for our future and remind us of the sacred relationship we have with our living, breathing planet.

Tierney was born on Long Island, New York. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1985 with a B.F.A. in Visual Communication. Since then, she has worked as an illustrator; owned a custom framing and art handling business; renovated houses and galleries; fabricated exhibits for the Smithsonian, the BMA, and American Visionary Art Museum; and taught immersive outdoor art workshops. She recently worked with environmental anthropologist Anand Pandian to co-teach “The Future of Here,” an experimental studio class at Johns Hopkins University that culminated with an exhibit at The Peale Museum.

Courtesy of the artist BMA