“Ghost Forest” + “Wildfire”

Following the devastating 2020 wildfires in Oregon, Sarah Grew collected black coals from the fires that she then used through extensive research and experimentation, to create carbon prints of recorded images of the forests themselves. Her process and its resulting prints, with their frilled edges and torn emulsion echo the way natural fire cycles can surmount devastation to provide nutrients to the soil, force a pinecone to disperse its seeds, or shape the landscape, in contrast to the extreme intensity and size of the fires that are now common. The photographs show us the beauty being lost to human negligence and the climate crisis. Printed as lantern slides, the forest memory is held captive on sheets of glass accentuating both the fragility of life and our precarious position. Hung at various heights the viewer is invited to move through the Ghost Forest, witnessing a range of natural elements.

The exhibition at the LaVerne Krause Gallery will also include Jon Bellona’s sound installation Wildfire—a 48-foot-long speaker array that plays back a wave of fire sounds at speeds of actual wildfires. An instructor of audio production in the School of Music and Dance, Bellona hopes the installation will allow viewers to embody the devastating spread of wildfires through an auditory experience.

Sarah Grew creates art based in painting and photography, that expands into installation and environmental art and contracts into collage and printmaking. Her work includes a range from public art projects to wall based pieces belonging in private collections nationally and internationally. In researching the concepts that enrich her work she has become a beekeeper, studied native plant habitats, and worked as an Artist-in-Residence for a recycling facility in California. Recently, she was an artist in residence on a science research boat studying the effects of climate change on the plankton food web. Previously, Grew was awarded residencies at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Playa Artist Residency, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Joshua Tree National Park, the Collegeum Phaenomonologicum in Italy, Brush Creek and the Ucross Foundation. She has also received several support fellowships from The Ford Family Foundation.

Jon Bellona is a sound artist who specializes in digital technologies, and a Career Instructor of Audio Production within the School of Music and Dance at the University of Oregon. His music and media explore environmental sustainability, data-body interactivity, digital musical instruments, site-specific sound, and choreographic composition. Bellona is a co-director of Harmonic Laboratory, an interdisciplinary arts collective focused on art and technology collaborations. His work has been shown in concerts, festivals, and galleries across North America and Europe.

Practice Makes Better

“Practice Makes Better: Iteration and Improvement in Baggage”

Practice Makes Better shows the result of an advanced baggage studio in Product Design. Students made an ideal everyday bag for themselves, making and testing four prototypes over the course of the term. The result was an exploration of slow, intentional improvement in design and making. All four prototypes will be on display, along with booklets that illustrate the research and fabrication processes.

“Cosmic Solitude”

1st Year MFA Exhibition featuring artwork by:

XINYU LIU
ADAM DESORBO
JENS PETTERSEN
GRACIE ROTHERING
KATE MONTGOMERY

 

“DISAPPOINTING beyond our ancestor’s wildest dreams”

 

g[ch]Asm COLLECTIVE

ASAKO YONAN
HANNAH GERSHONE
RACHAEL SOL LEE
WILL ZENG

“Our artist collective is interested in exploring digital media, writings, maps, archives, and artwork of diasporic communities. Our shared interests lie in critiques of existing representations of Asian American subjects in mass media, utilizing digital mediums to build Asian American futurities, intergenerational knowledge and archives (especially around food), and community building as means of survival.”

You know that feeling?

You know that feeling? is rooted in genuine creativity that rejects the restrictions of art within institutionalized academia that creates unrealistic expectations and timelines. The participating artists: Sammy Grubman, Courtney McCall, and Amiya McInnis aim to reclaim that feeling of stimulation and satiation that comes with creating art within one’s own ability and temporal capacities. Within their works, they emphasize the emotions tied to the physical and mental process of creating art.

“Nine Hours Ahead”

Nine Hours Ahead is a collection of work born from our shared experience living abroad in Siena, Italy. Through everyday journaling and painting, we recorded the sights, sounds, and emotions we were exposed to during our travels. Living in this hub of contemporary and historical art was an artist’s dream, and with this exhibit we invite the viewer to experience it with us. Represented are the artists Gavin Brister, Wilfred Lim, Mia Radostitz, and Hana Taylor.

PEEPER

“Peeper addresses the theme of private versus public in the relationship between the viewer and the artist. The participating artists represent their inner thoughts and deconstructed ideas in a material manner. We ask the viewer to consider how their own subjectivity informs their experience within the space. The artists represented in Peeper are Eva Morris, Annika Mayne, Sage Kosmala, Sayloren Wieche, and Seihwan Sean Park.”