By the Ton examines the historical legacy of multinational chemical companies and their influence on the global food system. Using collage, silkscreen, vintage postcards and historical photographs, this series critiques the practice of corporate greenwashing and exposes the dark history of the agrichemical industry. Stolle extracts text from chemical company propaganda and superimposes it over historical photographs to create compositions that explore the complex relationship between economy and ecology.

Stolle’s exhibition in Second Street Gallery’s Dové Gallery features two works from her Chemical Bouquet series. Using 19th century still life flower paintings as a historical reference point, Chemical Bouquet comments on the genetic modification of plants and animals, the use of harmful herbicides and the distorting of company history by multinational chemical corporations.

Kirsten Stolle is a visual artist working in collage, drawing and mixed media. Her research-based practice is grounded in the investigation of corporate propaganda, environmental politics and biotechnology. Born in Newton, Massachusetts, Stolle received a BA in Visual Arts from Framingham State University and completed studies at Richmond College in London and Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and her work is included in the permanent collections of the San Jose Museum of Art (CA), Crocker Art Museum (CA), and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN). Stolle has exhibited extensively in the United States, most recently participating in an exhibition at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In February of 2017, Stolle held her first international solo exhibition in Berlin, Germany at NOME Gallery.