Artist-in-Residence Bruce Conkle

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Archer Gallery hosts seven Art Talks, three workshops

Spring is a busy, exciting season at Archer Gallery – and if you’ve never been to the gallery, I encourage you to stop by. This April and May, the gallery welcomes artist-in-residence Bruce Conkle and a slate of public programs, including seven art talks and three workshops.

All events are free and open to the public, and will have light refreshments – so invite your colleagues, friends, and family along. Unless otherwise noted, events take place in the Archer Gallery, located at the lower southwest entrance of the Penguin Union Building. See you there!

Artist-in-Residence Bruce Conkle

Artist-in-Residence Bruce Conkle

For the 2025 Artist-in-Residence, Bruce Conkle was chosen because his work is engaging, thoughtful, and funny and because he has experience working with students. He has an extensive resume and plans to use his time in the residency to create ambitious drawings and sculptures. His first workshop will be about creating paper sculptures, and his second workshop will be on silver leafing. His work explores climate change, which is an important, current topic discussed in science, art, philosophy, and social science classrooms amongst others.

Conkle declares an affinity for mysterious natural phenomena such as snow, fire, rainbows, crystals, volcanos, tree burls, and meteorites. He examines contemporary attitudes toward the environment, including deforestation, climate change, and extinction. Conkle’s work often deals with man’s place within nature and frequently examines what he calls the misfit quotient at the crossroads.

His work has been shown in Reykjavik, Iceland; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and in the United States in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Seattle and Portland. Conkle’s recent projects include public art commissions for the Oregon Department of Transportation, TriMet/MAX Light Rail, and Portland State University’s Smith Memorial Student Union Public Art + Residency. He has been the recipient of a Hallie Ford Fellowship, an Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, and Regional Arts and Culture Council project grant.

  • Artist Talk: April 15, 1-2 p.m. at Penguin Union Building, Room 161
  • Workshop 1: “Paper Sculpture” April 30, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
  • Workshop 2: “Silver Leafing”  May 6, noon – 1:30 p.m.
  • Closing Reception: May 10, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
  • Artist’s website: https://bruceconkle.com/

Clark Art Talks

For the Clark Art Talks, I have invited artists from a variety of media, backgrounds, and experiences to share their work with our community. Each of these professional artists have unique histories and will share personal stories of artistic struggle and success with Clark students. As a student studying art, it is extremely valuable to hear how other artists have carved out careers for themselves.

Chris Lael Larson

Chris Lael Larson

Chris Lael Larson combines digital media with traditional painting, photography, and drawing materials. His colorful work playfully challenges our ideas of visual perception. His artist talk will be via Zoom to accommodate a digital painting class that meets online.

Larson has shown work in more than 30 cities across the U.S., with notable exhibitions at the Berkeley Museum of Art, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and The Portland Art Museum NW Film Center. He received a 2020 grant from The Regional Arts and Culture Council to publish Cape Disappointment, a photo book documenting the visual vernacular of the distinctive towns of the coastal northwest — places where historical, cultural, commercial, and natural forces layer to create a confounding visual mélange.

Malia Jensen

Malia Jensen

Malia Jensen creates sculptures and videos that investigate systems of nature. Her aesthetic is clever, polished, and highly crafted with a nod to symbolic imagery. Jensen draws inspiration from the natural world and the complex relationships we negotiate within it. Her technically accomplished work marries the tactile authority of the handmade with complex psychological narratives and a genuine quest for harmony and understanding.

Her work can be found in many public and private collections nationally and throughout the Northwest. Her project, Nearer Nature, received support from the Creative Heights Initiative of the Oregon Community Foundation. The resulting six-hour video, “Worth Your Salt,” was screened online during her virtual residency with the Portland Art Museum and was added to its permanent collection.

Kimberly Trowbridge

Kimberly Trowbridge

Kimberly Trowbridge works with installation, paint, and performance to create psychological landscapes and large narrative paintings. A lecturer on color theory, Trowbridge is the director of The Modern Color Atelier, a multi-year painting program at Gage Academy of Art, Seattle. She has led plein-air painting tours in Spain, Portugal, and Twisp, Washingon. She is currently developing work in the Pacific Northwest and the Mojave Desert and is writing her first book on color.

Trowbridge, who has developed a practice of traveling and oil painting directly from nature, says, “On the field is where I cultivate a deep and sensitive awareness of color interaction. I consider these field works my ‘primary documents,’ and they help inform my larger, narrative paintings.” She added: “I use stage-like, pastoral settings to create visual allegories of our physical and spiritual connection to the natural world.”

Mark R. Smith

Mark R. Smith

Mark R. Smith’s art utilizes textiles as a way to examine and understand social structures. He will talk about teaching, collaboration, and public art. His current studio practice involves using recycled textiles which he incorporates into labor-intensive, densely patterned motifs that reference communal architecture, crowd dynamics and the behavioral aspects of social organisms.

His work has been featured in institutions across the U.S. His solo exhibitions include Gallery Hlemmur, Reykjavik, Iceland; the Office of the Governor, Salem, Oregon, and the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon. His work is included in several public and private collections, including the American Embassy, Accra, Ghana; City Arts Inc., New York; King County Public Art Collection, Meta, Seattle, Washington; Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Nike Inc., Beaverton, Oregon.

For Event Information: Archer Gallery (clark.edu)

Photographs submitted Kendra Larson.

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