Lara Gastinger

Lara Call Gastinger (Col ’98 CM) is featured with fellow artists Giselle Gautreau and Elizabeth Perdue in a group exhibition, Mirabilia naturae (Wonders of Nature), at Charlottesville’s Second Street Gallery. The exhibition, which runs through May 19, examines how art can be a powerful tool for engaging with nature and the natural landscape. Through the lens of beauty and wonder, the works of these artists provide a personal and profound experience of the natural world. In doing so, they hope to inspire viewers to take action to protect and preserve it. Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, and was the chief illustrator of the Flora of Virginia, a botanical reference. She has been awarded two gold medals (2007, 2018) at the Royal Horticultural Society Botanical Art shows in London and her work is in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Her artwork appears in the latest Peterson’s Field Guide to Mushrooms and American Society of Botanical Artists Botanical Art Techniques Handbook. She has gained international recognition with the creation of her “perpetual journal” that has inspired naturalists around the world to start their own.