Artist Talks @ Bunnell

“When I’m mindfully moving through nature my senses are alive to color, pattern, shapes, movement, flow, and contrasts. Being in nature while fully present to the experience is a spiritual and life giving experience for me. I feel more deeply connected to myself and to God….My style of painting could be described as a painterly realism. I try to reproduce the particularity of light, color and shapes but I want the energy and movement of the brushwork to still be there. That’s what gives life to a landscape in my opinion. It is my hope that my paintings would help the view to re-experience the life-giving energy of God’s creation.”

 

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“Salmon are iconic. They are sacred. They are keystone beings. Salmon are the thread that stitches together land and ocean, forests, wetlands and rivers of clean cold water,  whales, bears, marine mammals, birds and other fish, peoples and cultures, customs and traditions, identity, and ways of life. more.

“Alutiiq cosmology is built on the belief that all things, living and inanimate are sentient and that people are equal members of a system that is built on reciprocity and kinship. My ancestors understood there is but a thin veil between the natural world and the spiritual world and deeply valued their relationship with other living beings. more.

Leslie M. Robertson –

“My altered books are rooted in mixed media and experimentation, shaped by my ongoing relationship with nature and the materials themselves. I collect found objects from the environment, recycling bins, and pieces of my own past art work. Each piece carries traces of time, memory, and transformation. The process is immersive and slow. The materials guide my decisions on what to do next and the books develop gradually through collecting, layering, and reworking. I work with elements like tree bark, leaves, encaustic wax, fabric, and stitching, building surfaces through layers of pigment, texture, and found materials. These tactile qualities invite a closer look and engagement. I hope the work encourages viewers to slow down, notice the details, and find their own sense of connection—to the materials, to place, and to their own experience of being present.”

 

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Katelin Hiller –

“I make drawings that regard the environment as a living shrine. They are made from mixed materials applied in many layers onto boards from white spruce trees that grew near where I live. The trees had a life before I made drawings on them, they contributed to the atmosphere and everything here. I view, touch, inhale, and ingest the boreal forest so it can express itself through my eyes and hands. I do this so you can be present among it too, imagining its current condition and future characteristics. In this body of work, I point mainly at green-hued life and a single wooded setting, but a closer look unveils variances: red, blue, yellow, overlapped vantage points, and hybridized horizons.”

 

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Debra Lowney –

“I am a self taught wood sculptor who strives to create innovative art that inspires, intrigues, and challenges the viewer. I’m drawn to landscapes with a focus on drawing attention to the environmental changes taking place and hopefully tempt the viewer to contemplate this change. Wood, and its vulnerability in landscapes are a bit of a metaphor for environmental change. The majority of the wood in these pieces have been harvested from fallen trees, then transformed into an image, in essence given an opportunity to continue on by highlighting changes occurring in our environments.”

 

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“For more than a decade, drawing has been central to my artistic practice. Working with pencil and black ink, I build dense structures of lines that gradually form fragments of coniferous branches. The process itself is essential to my work and often takes on a meditative quality, unfolding through repetition, rhythm, and sustained attention. Nature holds a particular significance for me as a constant source of inspiration. The recurring motif of coniferous branches originates in the landscape of my home environment, where such trees are abundant. In my work, this natural form becomes a universal structure through which broader reflections on life, perception, and the many forms emerging from nature are revealed.”

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This body of work takes place locally in the landscapes of the Kachemak Bay area, among the plants and animals we share space with. It contains many of the ideas and themes I continue to explore in my art: Relationships to nature, community, and self, appreciation of the ordinary and the beauty found anywhere, acknowledgment of anxieties, sorrows, and unknowns, expressions of holding and being held. Also included is playfulness and curiosity as I followed what most excited me creatively. I let myself embrace eclectic concepts and imagery with trust that the work would fit together through pattern, color, and possibility of evocation. I often approach painting like collage, pulling observational and imagined images together with the question of how they relate. This exhibit offers a question that comes to mind almost daily–what color blue–on horizon, on cloud bottom, on coffee mug, water jug, on the palette. Blue is open to interpretation, an invitation to notice.

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“I discovered the book “Alaskan Igloo Tales” (c. 1974, illustrations by G. Agupuk) years ago while working in Nome, AK’s Indian Education Art and Culture Program. At that time, the stories in this book felt strange and distant from modern Native culture and experience.

My self-studies in myth, history, Native cultures, and spirituality renewed my interest in the fascinating and inspiring stories in “Alaskan Igloo Tales.” I’ve chosen to visually reinterpret the book’s Inupiaq-identifying stories based on my new understanding, gained through studying Joseph Campbell’s mythic language and symbols.

This project started with two residencies at IAIA in Santa Fe and continued with a residency at Makotaay Art Village in Taiwan. I’ve illustrated all thirty stories in watercolor. These watercolor sketches serve as composition and color studies for moku hanga, a Japanese woodblock-style printmaking process.” learn more. 

Just Listen

“I’ve come to believe in the river, where we are most aligned with flow. Responding to each turn and turbulence with a measure of calm. It requires space for attention. It requires listening.

This selection of works is the result of listening. Of guided intuition. The works have differing origins. For some, it began with first light skipping across the snow. Or it was pangs of distant connection, or the immediacy of a bond. Others evade my certainty. They all shift and defy their inception. To define their relationship would limit their potential, and the moment is wildly full of potential. Stand in the water, in the snow. Just listen.”