For the cold winter months, Amy Helfand imported the vibrancy of the Wild Garden into the domestic interior of Wave Hill House. For Nature Might Have Been Responsible, Helfand created 22 new works including prints, fabric for a bench cushion, and a Tibetan carpet, by manipulating images of the plants and garden site plans from Wave Hill's Wild Garden. The inspiration for Wave Hill's Wild Garden and Helfand's personal interest in the subject both come from the Irish writer and gardener William Robinson, whose 1870 book, The Wild Garden, was a reaction against formalism in garden design . The concept of the Wild Garden, where plants not necessarily occurring together in nature are made to look as if they did, is parallel to her own artistic process. Appropriating images from Wave Hill and Robinson's book, Helfand deftly applies a electric color scheme of her own to devise scenarios where "natural" organic elements are layered with site plans to create entirely new landscapes .

Nature Might Have Been Responsible is Amy Helfand’s first solo exhibition in New York. She has exhibited frequently in New York and Chicago, including shows at the Brent Sikemma Gallery, New York, Momenta Art, New York, Flat Gallery, Chicago, and Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago. Ms. Helfand was born in Chicago, IL and now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. www.amyhelfand.com.