CORTE MADERA, Calif.—A visitor would need to spend weeks wandering the electronic “corridors” of the online "Greenmuseum" to see all the trash sculptures, mixed-media installations, paintings, photographs and other environmental-focused art sprouting up in this Web-based exhibition space, whose collection is growing every day.

California environmental artist Sam Bower founded the site, greenmuseum.org—which he dubs “a traditional museum turned inside out”—in 2001. In the 1990s, he and a group of friends were working out of a renovated cowshed at the defunct Corte Madera, Calif. Meadowsweet Dairy, creating environmental art.

“It became clear to us in the late 1990s that there was an increasing interest in environmental artwork, but it was very hard to find out about it,” Bower said. “There were relatively few Web sites with information about it, and only a few books. But we knew at least a dozen people in the Bay Area addressing ecological issues in their work, and we started hearing about projects in other cities, too.”

Bower said the Internet was the perfect way to bring together these artworks—a feat that would have been impossible to pull off in a traditional museum setting. “So many of [the environmental artworks] were site-specific or ephemeral that we thought a Web site would be the best way to transcend geography, connect all these artists and share the work with others. And one of the biggest advantages is that you never have to take [the exhibitions] down.”

Both the environmental art movement and the popularity of the Internet started to surge after Bower launched the non-profit site, and as it approaches its fifth anniversary, greenmuseum.org now boasts countless online exhibitions from all over the world—plus artists’ profiles, essays, interviews and community event listings. The Corte Madera-based organization is surviving on grants and donations and has an in-house staff of three, along with a board of directors, board of advisors, curatorial board and Web designer.

“We’ve grown rather quickly,” Bower said. “The movement as a whole is really taking off.”

He said the public’s growing interest in environmental art is a natural response to pressing global concerns. “It’s a testament to the urgency of these issues in our times. If you look at the news and the types of scientific information coming to us—on issues like global warming and species depletion—those things are in danger of throwing our whole planet out of whack. Artists reflect those issues and concerns in their work. Artists have traditionally been among the first to call attention to important issues, and they want to be part of the public dialogue.”

Art, Bower said, is the perfect medium to cast light upon these issues. “Art is one of the most powerful tools for communicating complex ideas and connecting concepts or issues to people in a visceral, aesthetic and metaphorical way. It helps something that might otherwise seem abstract resonate powerfully within a culture. You can look at a lot of the work as fun ways to make sustainability fun, sexy or metaphorically rich,” he added. “It’s up to artists, musicians, poets and filmmakers to really bring this home so it’s tasty to digest.”

But those striving to create it—and present it—still face monumental challenges, Bower said. “The challenges are changing,” he said. “Before, the big challenge was that no one had ever heard about these things; the Internet has definitely helped with that. The biggest challenge now is funding—getting funders to look at things like collaborative projects in a more holistic way.”