Artist Talks @ Bunnell

September 8th, Second Friday - 10 x 10 Member’s Exhibit

“Taking Care” exhibit statement:  How do artists express care for self, community, other life forms and the land? How do artists picture resilience, innovation, and healing? As first responders, artists lead as healers through their creations. In times of tension, crisis or distress, artists surface truth and create images of energy, vibrancy, and hope. The exhibition, “Taking Care,” aims  to foster hope, spark joy, and nurture self and community resilience.

 

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August 4th, First Friday, Lawrence R. ‘Ulaaq’ Ahvakana

Inuit artist, Lawrence “Ulaaq’’ Ahvakana, shows a variety of sculpture in stone, wood, bronze and glass as well as masks and two-dimensional works on paper.

“My inspiration is our Inuit stories, from everyday Northern Alaska lifestyle of subsistence, ceremonies, and the natural cycles of Arctic living depicted in stone, wood, bronze, glass, others including prints, paintings and drawings.” more

July 7th, First Friday, Linda Infante Lyons

“In the spirit of inclusivity, I blend the spiritual symbols of Western culture with those of the Alaska Native people, elevating the culture and worldview of my ancestors. I acknowledge the duality of my heritage and invite the viewer to consider Alaska Native beliefs as equal to Western beliefs.

I present images of Alaska Native women, inspired by friends, family and fellow artists as the powerful beings I know them to be. Additionally, the land, animals and plant life take a rightful place as equals in my paintings.”

 

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June 2nd, First Friday, Antoinette Walker

For the month of June, Bunnell presents encaustic painter from Kodiak, Antoinette Walker. Exhibit opening will be on June 2nd from 5-7pm, with an artist talk at 6pm. The evening also opens the 6th Annual Community Supported Art (CSA) project and will introduce 2023 CSA artists after Antoinette’s artist talk.

“My creativity and life stories are expressed with coastal marine themes that capture the wild beauty of my home, Alaska. Encaustic is my material of choice; a blend of beeswax, damar crystals and pigment. Often using charts, scraps of paper and found objects that are embedded in the wax medium. I draw upon first-hand experiences of fishing, its dangers and excitement.”

“Eroding river banks, weathered canneries, set net sites, surfaces beaten by heavy winds and torrential seas and rustic landscapes tell a compelling story. With every year there are subtle changes and inspirations for a fresh perspective. I’m drawn to these surfaces with textural layers that disclose a story. Using encaustic, painting, scraping, and scratching, I seek to reveal pieces that speak of the past and present. For me, inspiration is often a mystery. In painting, one thing inspires while another fades away. As in the landscape, changes are absorbed and reconfigured.”

Bio:

Antoinette Walker is an encaustic painter based in Kodiak. She is known primarily for her coastal marine subjects. Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, is a form of painting that involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. Using encaustic and embedding papers, charts, fish tickets and found objects Antoinette creates pieces that reflect her love of Alaska. Born in 1953 and raised on Kodiak Island, she has studied and practiced art for most of her life. For the past twenty-three years her primary medium has been encaustic. Her work is recognized and collected throughout Alaska. It has been exhibited in the Anchorage Historical Museum and is held in the collections of the Pratt Museum in Homer, Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Baronov Museum in Kodiak, Kodiak Public Library, Providence Hospital, Kodiak, and Credit Union 1 in Kodiak.

The Visual Arts Exhibition program is sponsored by North Wind Home Collection, art sales, and individual donors. Thank You!

May 5th, First Friday, Changing Landscapes

For the month of May, Bunnell presents Changing Landscapes, a group invitational exhibit featuring new work by Deb Lowney, Sharlene Cline and Kristin Link. Exhibit opening will be on May 5th from 5-7pm, artist talks at 6pm.

As human activities increase the rate at which natural processes like glacial retreat, weathering and erosion shape the landscape, what agency do artists offer as witnesses, interpreters and documentarians of disappearing landscapes? How do artists steward how we hold and express feelings about change? How might art help humans find strength, reckon with loss, and face what is revealed with courage, purpose and love? Artists featured are: Sharlene Cline, Deb Lowney and Kristin Link.

April 7th, First Friday with Tor Lukasik-Foss

“The majority of my creative work over the past two decades has explored the subtle mechanics that inform how people connect to each other, and how people connect to place. In particular, I am fascinated in social anxiety as a disruptive, paradoxical yet also generative energy, one that both separates people as well as leading them to incredibly creative strategies of connection. In 2015, I launched a project entitled “I AM NOT PSYCHIC’—essentially a fortune-teller booth designed specifically for those who have no psychic or mystical power. Informed by my befuddlement in crowded or chaotic public spaces, the booth offered a way to invite strangers, one at a time, into rich and reciprocal conversations.”

April 7th, First Friday with Jenny Irene Miller

Jenny Irene Miller: “I’m an artist who uses photography. My art practice is grounded in all of this: place, storytelling, Indigeneity, queerness, and familial and community relations. Photography provides a space for me to practice a form of careful observation that runs deep in the Inupiaq culture I come from. My art practice considers photography’s ability to share stories, to recall people and memories, and how it has been used as a weapon in the colonial project.”

March 3rd, First Friday with The Amazing David Brame

“This is the last installment of the Dusty Funk installation series, exploring performative experience and mixed media to question the status quo, identity, gender and race, and produce both beautiful and grotesque imagery in an Afro-surreal environment. I am looking for new ways to tell stories and engage with audiences with my work. Fresh inspiration abounds. The Quixotic Queericule Quazar uses comics, poetry, prose, and large mixed media paintings to tell a short story discussing identity, addiction, and the feelings associated with giving your dreams to the void.” – David Brame

February 3rd, First Friday with Katie Ione Craney

“Glaciers sing. Blueberries listen. Bodies long to/for touch. “for a moment, we exist together, for a moment” is a series of sensory-based works examining communication, systems of care, semiotic beings, grief, and the aesthetics of accessibility within art and non-art spaces. Visitors are invited to participate and engage with the work through multiple entry points as a form of reciprocity. Many pieces are informed by and made in collaboration with artists, writers, musicians, researchers, and wayfarers.” – Katie Ione Craney

November 4th First Friday with Hans Hallinen

Bunnell Street Art Center exhibits installation artist Hans Hallinen. Join us for the exhibit opening on November 4th from 5-7pm, artist talk at 6pm.

“Threshold” exhibits a series of objects designed in cooperation with algorithms and constructed with the support of computer-controlled tools by Anchorage-based artist, Hans Hallinen. More.