Archer Gallery is bringing three artists and multiple events to campus in May. All events are free and open to the public, so invite your colleagues, friends, and family to attend with you. Except where noted, all talks take place in Archer Gallery, located at the lower southwest entrance of the Penguin Union Building. See you there!

Kanani Miyamoto

Thursday, May 2 at 11 a.m.
Clark College, Penguin Union Building (PUB) 161
www.nativeartsandcultures.org/kanani-miyamoto

Originally from Honolulu, Kanani Miyamoto practices art, teaches, and curates in Portland, Oregon. An individual of mixed heritage, she most identifies with her Hawaiian and Japanese roots, which are celebrated in her artwork. Miyamoto holds a Master of Fine Arts in Print Media from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and a Bachelor of Arts in Art Practices from Portland State University. She is the arts coordinator at p:ear.

Important to Miyamoto’s work is sharing and honoring her mixed cultural background to represent her community and the beauty of intersectional identities. She hopes to create critical conversations around cultural authenticity in the arts. She uses traditional printmaking techniques to create large-scale print installations and murals. She also is an advocate for art education and a passionate community worker.

Miyamoto said about her work: “I’d like to tell the story of survivance and resilience through reclaiming this tradition. I want to recognize our ancestors and feel their hands through my hands.”

David Eckard, Artist in Residence

Exhibit: May 1 – 31, 2024
Archer Gallery
Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
www.davideckardstudio.com

Other events in Archer Gallery:

• Artist Talk: May 9 at 10 a.m.
• Workshop: May 16 at 10 a.m.
• Reception: May 18 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

David Eckard utilizes diverse materials, techniques, and presentational strategies in his studio practice. Futility, function, authority, queer masculinity, and persona are the primary notions investigated, critiqued, and exploited in his work. Eckard fabricates fictive artifacts and enigmatic objects with various materials and techniques. These sculptures exist as singular objects, installation components, and performance props.

His rendered works on panels and paper are biomorphic, sexualized schematics that address the body as a carrier of histories, fantasies, potential, and trauma. Through performance, Eckard orchestrates transient theatrics and deploys temporary monuments in civic spaces for incidental audiences.

Eckard has exhibited internationally. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture, Flash Art, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and Artnews. He is the recipient of multiple fellowships and awards including the Individual Artist Fellowship (2015, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland, Oregon), the Hallie Ford Fellowship in the Visual Arts (2010, Ford Family Foundation, Portland), and the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship (2010, Portland).

Nicole Seisler

Tuesday, May 7 from 9 – 11:20 a.m.
Frost Art Center, Room 011 Ceramics Studio
https://nysprojects.com/

Nicole Seisler is a Portland-based ceramic artist whose practice comprises making, educating, and curating. Her sculpture, installations and public art investigate time, materiality, process, psychology, and the overlapping roles of artist, viewer, participant and collaborator.

Seisler received her master’s in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her bachelor’s in fine arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work has been exhibited at Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Tallahassee, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles and American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California. Her work is featured in the “In Hand” exhibition at Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University. During the pandemic she published the book Recipes for Conceptual Clay (in the time of Covid-19)”.

She has taught ceramics for more than ten years at universities including School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Washington, Scripps College, and UCLA. She is an assistant professor and head of ceramics at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. As founder and director of the contemporary ceramics platform A-B Projects, she has curated over 30 exhibitions and offers alternative educational programming that reevaluates and redefines the trajectory of contemporary ceramics.

Across her practice, Seisler creates dialogue and perspectives around ceramics that exist in the same conditions as the material: malleable, shifting, adaptable, and enduring; existing within, between, and beyond conventional definitions.

More details are available here at Archer Gallery | Clark College

April is a robust month for Archer Gallery at Clark College. If you’ve never been to the gallery, this month is an ideal time to visit. The gallery is presenting four art talks in April. All are free and open to the public, so invite your colleagues, friends, and family to attend with you. Except where noted, all talks take place in Archer Gallery, located at the lower southwest entrance of the Penguin Union Building. See you there! Find details at Archer Gallery (clark.edu)

Pamela Chipman and Jan Cook

Thursday, April 18 at 2 p.m.
Location: Archer Gallery
Info: https://afraidnotafraid.com/

Artists Pamela Chipman and Jan Cook will discuss their exhibit, Afraid/Not Afraid. It is a photography-based immersive installation with sound that examines how women live with an ever-present threat of violence and the feeling of being unsafe in their world. In creating this work, we are confronting this underlying fear to call attention to and to create discussion and change around these issues. This collaborative photo-based installation explores vulnerability and our relationship to it as women. Gender violence, sexual stereotypes, and the portrayal of women in the media and popular culture feed and perpetuate this fear in our society. Our work looks at how these forces shape the lives and behavior of women, often in subtle ways, that become ingrained and normalized as part of our worldview. The images reflect the relationship between being watched and objectified and how women present their identities to the world.

Kelly Bjork

Wednesday, April 24 at 2 p.m.
Virtual via Zoom: https://clark-edu.zoom.us/j/86711178018
Info: https://www.kellybjork.com/

Kelly Bjork is an illustrator, painter, and muralist working and living in Seattle. About their work they write: “Creating quiet moments of emotional wellbeing in my art is how I work to soothe and comfort others. I depict a world of tenderness, acceptance, and vulnerability in order to share the sensations of emotional wellbeing that I aim to foster in my life and in my community. I often create vignettes of people close to me. Narratives of intimate relationships are important for displaying the peace and support that everyone strives for in their homes and in their heads—peace and support that so often we are lacking. My paintings intend to bring that support in our surroundings. I consider my work both manifestation and documentation, it’s a means of advocating for mental wellness by acknowledging my own struggles with it. I hope a viewer sees the image of a space I’ve created as a place where they can rest and will be taken care of.”

Epiphany Couch

Thursday, April 25 at 10 a.m.
Location: Clark College, Penguin Union Building (PUB) 161
https://www.epiphanycouch.com/

Epiphany Couch is an interdisciplinary artist exploring generational knowledge, storytelling, and our connection to the metaphysical. By re-contextualizing classic mediums such as bookmaking, beadwork, photography, and collage, she presents new ways to examine our pasts, the natural world, and our ancestors. Couch’s work is unapologetically personal, drawing from family stories, her childhood experience, archival research, and her own dreams. She utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to create images and sculptural works that hold space for reflection, transforming from mere things into precious objects — intimate and heirloom-like.

Couch is spuyaləpabš (Puyallup), Yakama, and Scandinavian and grew up in caləłali (Tacoma, Washington). She earned her BFA in sculpture with a minor in Asian studies from The University of Puget Sound. Her work has been shown at Gallery Ost in New York City, Yuan Ru Gallery in Bellevue, Washington, and Carnation Contemporary in Portland, Oregon. She received the Jurors Choice Award for her work included in the Around Oregon Biennial at The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon in 2022 and 2023. She lives and works in Portland and is a member of Carnation Contemporary Gallery.

James Boulton with Braille Stars

Saturday, April 27 from 2-4 p.m.
Location: Archer Gallery

James Boulton’s artwork is often characterized by dense layering and energetic application of materials. He has exhibited sculpture, video, drawing, and most often painting in galleries, museums, and more. At Archer Gallery, the artist presents an installation of new drawings paired with an improvised musical performance by the trio Braille Stars.

Braille Stars was founded in 1999 in Portland, Oregon by Gilly Ann Hanner and Stef River Darensbourg. Their expansive style combines experimental improvisation with melodic themes equally influenced by their guitar punk roots and ambient dream core. James Boulton joins the group in their newest incarnation performing instrumental pieces that rely on intuition, invention, and responsiveness as the trio collaboratively generates compositions in real time.

I am excited to announce the next Archer Gallery exhibit, Afraid/Not Afraid, by Pamela Chipman (Portland) and Jan Cook (Seattle). This immersive photo-based art installation looks at gender and vulnerability. Please join us for the opening reception and artist talk (dates below). Exhibitions and art talks are free and open to the public. 

Exhibit title: Afraid/Not Afraid 
What: Immersive, photo-based art installation looks at gender and vulnerability 
Artists: Pamela Chipman and Jan Cook 

Exhibit dates: February 7 through April 25 

• Viewing hours: Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. 
• Opening reception—with free pizza: Wednesday, February 7, noon – 2 p.m. 
• Artist reception and performance by Lyra Butler-Denman: Saturday, February 17, 2 to 5 p.m. 
• Artist talk (in person): Thursday, April 18, 2-3 p.m. 

Website: Archer Gallery (clark.edu) 

Exhibition Statement: 

Afraid/Not Afraid immersive photo-based art installation looks at gender and vulnerability. 

Afraid/Not Afraid examines how women live with an ever-present threat of violence and the feeling of being unsafe in their world. Gender violence, sexual stereotypes, and the portrayal of women in the media and popular culture feed and perpetuate this fear in our society. This collaborative photo-based installation explores vulnerability and the artists’ relationship to it as women. The work looks at the emotional side of this subject and how these forces shape the lives and behavior of women, often in subtle ways, that become ingrained and normalized as part of their worldview.  

In this immersive installation, the viewer becomes the voyeur, peeping through an exterior window of a house before entering the space. The exhibition combines projected images, large photographic fabric panels, and sound. The images reflect the relationship between being watched and objectified and how women present their identities to the world. The photographs and projections on semi-transparent layers combine and interplay as the viewer moves through the piece, building an intimate space for reflection. 

The artists Jan Cook and Pamela Chipman created this installation together in an artist residency in Portland, Oregon. They are white cisgender women whose own experiences and concerns with safety and consent propelled them to make this body of work. In confronting this underlying fear, they want to call attention to and to create discussion and change around these issues.  

Jan Cook is a Seattle artist who works with photo-based imagery to examine the ideas that run through our collective unconscious and tie us together in our humanity. Pamela Chipman is a Portland-based visual artist who explores themes of memory, domesticity, and femininity. She creates work that speaks to the history, strengths, and struggles of women in our culture. 

About the Archer Gallery and Clark Art Talks  

Archer Gallery serves the students and community of Clark College by exhibiting contemporary art in a not-for-profit educational setting. Archer Gallery exhibits work by nationally and internationally renowned artists and connects the Clark College community with accessible and diverse perspectives from the contemporary art world. Learn more here. 

Clark Art Talks serves the students and community of Clark College by hosting a monthly art lecture series. Distinguished artists and art scholars from around the country share their experiences related to their art practices and provide unique insights into their varied career paths and artistic techniques.