"Environs" explores internal and external worlds

Exhibition features work of nine artists; opening reception set for Oct. 2 in Nightingale Gallery

Cory Peeke | Nightingale Gallery Director
(541) 962-3584 | cpeeke@eou.edu

28 September 2009

LA GRANDE, Ore. - The Nightingale Gallery of Eastern Oregon University presents, "Environs," a group exhibition featuring a collection of works that explore the many environments in which we live, their effect on us and ours on them.

The exhibit presents the work of nine artists from throughout the United States working in a variety of media. An opening reception will be held Friday, October 2 from 6-8 p.m. in the gallery located in Loso Hall. The show will run through October 30. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Environs will present a selection of works by artists Patty Arnold, Peet Cocke, David Drake, Jill Fitterer, David Linneweh, Nicole Maury, Susan Murrell, Kristin Tollefson, and Betty Vera. These nine artists each in their own way explore both the internal and external worlds in which we live our lives.

Patty Arnold's photographic images taken from an aerial vantage point document water reservoirs, access roads, power lines, borate drops, fire scars and the scratches of agriculture and ranching, revealing the marks, scrapes, and patterns of intervention in the landscape. The images comment on man's influence on the land while at the same time become intriguing abstractions due to the camera's unique perspective.

Arnold who lives and works in California holds an MFA in photography and digital imaging from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. She is currently an adjunct member of the faculty at both Cuesta College and California Polytechnic State University teaching courses in digital imaging.

Peet Cocke creates works that mimic natural processes, or employ systems used to understand the earth in order to allude to the cyclical nature of time and change. His mixed media works attempt to document environmental issues and the complex balance and reciprocity found in our relationships with other species and ecological resources.

Cocke holds an MFA degree from the University of Southern California. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States and is currently a full time instructor at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California.

David Drakes's sculptural works are assembled of disconnected and ambiguous fragments of information and materials to form coherent stories about the objects in our world. Drake's objects respond directly to observers. His "Light House" illuminates and inflates in response to motion, then collapses again when the gallery is vacant or the observer stands still for long enough. Through these works observers are given evidence of their own presence and the effect of that presence on their surroundings.

Drake received his MFA degree in 2001 from Ohio University and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in architecture at Washington State University.

Jill Fitterer's etchings are quiet observations of the Idaho landscape aligned with images she has selected for their metaphoric or poetic value. The majestic scale of the land is realized intimately through small scale imagery and the clarity characteristic of the etching process.

Fitterer received her MFA from California State University Long Beach. Her work appears in such prestigious collections as Columbia College-Chicago, The Kansas City Art Institute, and Zayed University in Dubai. Fitterer is currently an Assistant Professor of Printmaking at Boise State University. In November 2007 she served as the juror for the La Grande Arts Commission's annual Season's Faire.

David Linneweh's paintings, which are created from flat colorful paint, wood veneer, and unfinished graphite drawing, question the idealism of the contemporary American landscape. His paintings, which depict common, recognizable architectural forms, deconstruct and reconstruct familiar settings which at one time felt new but over time have become stale. By taking notice of the subtleties in these forms we might then question the history of our sprawling culture specifically examining which ideas of the past have survived and which have disappeared.

Linneweh attained his MFA degree in painting from Southern Illinois University. In 2007 his work was featured in "New American Paintings" an exhibition in print juried by Linda Norden, Associate Curator of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University.

Nicole Maury's graphic works address issues of identity and dislocation. Through the symbolic use of patterning and form and a need to establish order the resulting prints are a network of self-imposed, visual systems that live in fear of chaos, but are at the same time helplessly drawn to it.

Maury lives and works in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she is an Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Printmaking Area at Western Michigan University. She received her M.F.A. in Printmaking from the University of Iowa in 2004.

Susan Murrell's wall-based installation, "Gray Matter", was conceived as an abstract representation of popular psychology's understanding of the separate functions indicative to the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Murrell explores these internal terrains creating a visually lively and intellectually challenging environment with which viewers may interact.

Murrell received her MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and currently resides in Hood River. She will visit campus to install her work and present a visiting artist talk.

Kristin Tollefson's sculptural works combine reclaimed industrial goods, including wire, copper gutter and glass to create pieces that explore the ambiguity and tension in the space between natural and human worlds. Transformation, accumulation, life cycles and organic and manufactured processes circulate through Tollefson's work.

Tollefson received her MFA in Metalsmithing from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. She lives and works on Bainbridge Island, Washington and her public sculptural works can be seen in a variety of locations throughout Washington State including several prestigious collections in Seattle.

Betty Vera who lives and works in New York City constructs two-dimensional images by means of fiber structures-weaves, patterns, knots, netting, grids and interlacements. Pointing to the fragility of life, one series of works depicts shadowy images of transparent forms. The forms are natural but inevitably bear our imprint; others are of our own making and are continually being re-made as we impose new layers of human history over the old.

Vera holds an MFA from Montclair State University. Her work is in variety of corporate and private collections, has been exhibited widely in galleries and museums around the country, and has been featured in American Craft, Fiberarts, Surface Design, and Interiors magazines, among other publications.

"The natural world has long been a rich source of subject matter for artists," said Cory Peeke, Nightingale Gallery director and the exhibit's curator. "We are excited to present the work of these artists and to participate in the ongoing dialogue about our interactive relationship with the world in which we live."

In conjunction with this exhibit artist Susan Murrell will present a public slide lecture on Wednesday, September 30 at 6 p.m. in Huber Auditorium in Badgely Hall. The presentation is free and open to the public.

For further information about the exhibition call the gallery, 541-962-3667 or visit www.eou.edu/art. To request images of artwork for publication or to schedule an interview with the artists please contact Peeke at cpeeke@eou.edu.

[ Print this page ]