JAMESTOWN – From today through July 6 the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History is hosting Environmental Impact, featuring works by internationally-known artists, such as world renowned Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman.

The pieces, in a wide range of styles and media, and outstanding in and of themselves, are united in their ominous message of a natural world under attack by over-consumption of natural resources, global climate change, and other human causes.

“It is as if beauty has been harnessed to foretell the end,” Michael Charles Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison write in their essay accompanying Environmental Impact.

The traveling exhibit is produced by veteran wildlife art curator David J. Wagner.

Wagner said he was heartened to discover “that there exists any number of highly successful, top-flight professional artists who have dedicated their considerable talent to confront the variety of difficult environmental issues that we face today.”

According to Wagner, because most art depicts “nature in all its pristine glory,” he sought to “showcase work that focuses on subjects and images that are closer to the reality of the age we live in” and focus on “ailments confronting humanity and the health of the planet today.”

Viewers of this exhibition will be sure to leave impressed with the execution of the artwork and with renewed commitment to do whatever we can to protect and conserve the natural world on which we all depend.

On Friday evening, June 27, RTPI will be privileged to have Cole Johnson on hand at an artist’s reception free and open to the public. Johnson, whose work is featured in the exhibition, will present a program on his unique style and the techniques that have brought him acclaim as one of the top graphite artists in the world.

The Peterson Institute also is featuring selections from the life work of Roger Tory Peterson and an exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon.

The Institute is located at 311 Curtis St. in Jamestown and is open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays 1 to 5 p.m.

For more information call 665-2473 or visit www.rtpi.org.