Past Exhibitions
“Mama Bear”, by Natalie Ball
November 15, 2023 - January 24th, 2024
The Stone Path
Work by Natalie Ball, Demian DineYazhi, Vanessa Enos, Ka'ila Farrell-Smith, Lillian Pitt,
Wendy Red Star, Jeremy Red Star Wolf, and Marie Watt. Presented by Art in Oregon.
"Shadow Work: Don't look up", 31"w. x 25"h. x 14"d, porcelain, metal, foam, glue, paint, 2023. Courtesy of the artist, Jennifer Brazelton.
Sept. 28 - Nov. 2nd, 2023
2023 Clark Art Faculty Biennial
An exhibition of recent work by Art Department Faculty Members.
Exhibition Statement:
Archer Gallery’s 2023 Clark Art Faculty Biennial is an exhibition of recent work by Art Department Faculty Members. The variety of materials and approaches highlighted in this show mirrors the diversity of classes offered at Clark and the very talented artists that teach those classes.
Artists Represented:
Jennifer Brazelton
Lisa Conway
Ray Cooper
Damien Gilley
Kathrena Halsinger
Stephen Hayes
Grant Hottle
Colin Kippen
Kendra Larson
Martha Lewis
Gabriel Parque
Shawn Records
Suzy Root
Ben Killen Rosenberg
Brian Shannon
Senseney Lea Stokes
Allison (Allie) Syes
May 3 - June 9, 2023
Art Student Annual 2023
a juried exhibition of Clark College Art Students
Archer Gallery’s Art Student Annual 2023 exhibition is a juried exhibit of Clark College art students’ work created in the past year and juried/ curated by their Clark College art professors. The strength and breath of this artwork reflects the hard work, dedication, and unique voices of our amazing Clark Students. Congratulations, ASA2023 exhibitors! The Clark College faculty and community are very proud of you and join you in celebrating the powerful work you have created this year.
-Kendra Larson, Archer Gallery Director
OPENING RECEPTION & AWARDS CEREMONY: May 3, 2023, 4pm - 6pm
CLOSING RECEPTION: June 9, 2023, 4pm - 6pm
PICK-UP ARTWORK: June 10 - 14, 11am - 5pm
Special thanks to Blick Art Materials, Georgies Ceramics and Clay, Gamblin Paint, Clay Art Center, PICA, McClain’s Printmaking, Pro Photo Supply, and Blue Moon Camera and Machine for generously supporting Clark Students with awards prizes.
Image by Dinara Dursun
Feb 15, 2023 – April 12, 2023
Homemaker
Featuring work by:
Amy Bay, Emily Counts, Mark Takiguchi, and Rachael Zur
This was an exhibit of work by four artists, all of which explore notions of home in their own unique ways. They also share an interest in the tension between representational and abstract images, as well as the value of a handmade mark and the physicality of materials. All the mediums presented in this exhibit (ceramics, paint, plaster, and found objects) championed the organic patina of life. All four artists blur the line between living and art. This intimacy with their subject led to intuitive and poignantly poetic moments for the viewers.
The Archer Gallery is very grateful to the artists and their galleries; Nationale and Studio e for the loan of these works.
November 16, 2022 - January 14, 2023
Claiming Space, an exhibit of large scale paintings
Featuring work by:
Jeremy Okai Davis, V. Maldonado, Elizabeth Malaska, and Michelle Ross
Three of the four artists in the exhibit, Elizabeth Malaska, Jeremy Okai Davis, and V. Maldonado use large canvases and drawings to make their stories and that of their families and communities heard. These communities, Female, Black, and Latinx, have often been silenced but the sheer size and bold surfaces of these paintings amplify their voices.
The fourth artist, Michelle Ross, claims space by literally unfolding within the paintings deep, multifaceted, and transitory spaces, complete with their own atmospherics and light.
The Archer Gallery is very grateful to the artists and their galleries; the Russo Lee Gallery, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, and the Froelick Gallery for the loan of these works.
September, 29 - October 28, 2022
Movidas: Too much is not enough
an exhibit of works by Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Art Student Annual 2022
a juried exhibition of Clark College Art Students
June 6 - June 14, 2022
Archer Gallery’s Art Student Annual 2022 exhibition is a juried show of Clark College art students’ work created in the past year and curated by their Clark College art professors. This year’s Art Student Annual exhibition will be the first held in-person, in our physical gallery space, since before the pandemic. Some works have been created entirely at home, taking virtual classes. Others have been created learning in hybrid formats, with both online and in-person components. While others still have been created entirely in face-to-face settings.
Our students continue to prove their flexibility, resourcefulness, and creativity in and out of the classroom. As year 3 of the pandemic begins, the art students and faculty of Clark College rise to the variety of challenges that COVID-19 plagues us with daily. We’ve all learned to push beyond our limits into spaces that are new and even uncomfortable at times. In that space, we learn different perspectives; we learn to compromise; we learn to listen and see; we learn to push forward, with patience and kindness, together as a community. We learn about change and compassion, empathy and resilience. We learn about our humanity.
As a faculty member of the Clark College Art Department for the past 5+ years, I have witnessed our students push through so many challenges. I admire every single one of these inspiring students, and I commend each on their commitment to their art practice - this past year, and for all the years leading up to this.
Congratulations, ASA2022 exhibitors! It is because of your hard work and dedication that you are included in this exhibition. Be proud of yourselves, as we, the Clark College art faculty and community, are of you! You’ve earned it all - every step of it. We can’t wait to see where you go next!
-Michelle Ramin, Archer Gallery Director
Carissa Potter Carlson, Untitled Hold, 18 x 24 inches, acrylic on Arches paper, 2022
Wallowing
a two-person exhibition by Carissa Potter Carlson & Kate Pruitt
April 19 - May 13, 2022
This April, artists and friends Carissa Potter and Kate Pruitt invite you to indulge in the mire. Their exhibition, Wallowing, presents a series of works made of longing, sadness, and confusion. Often we are taught not to linger in moments of grief: indulge too deeply in dark feelings and you may become trapped there forever. However, in coping with the recent churn of overwhelm and despair, both individual and collective, Potter and Pruitt have found that turning toward grief can be a way through.
The artworks in this show take on “muddiness” and the qualities of mud as a useful metaphor for coping with feelings of grief, loss, confusion, anger, and regret. Potter’s multi-scale figurative paintings explore the longing for touch, comfort and safety, and Pruitt’s papier-mâché sculptures combine abstract and figurative elements—human limbs, paws, anthropomorphized domestic objects—to capture moments of personal loss.
So much is broken and the trauma seems too much to bear sometimes, but transformation can sometimes hide in the depths of despair. In Wallowing, Kate and Carissa celebrate the act of sitting in the discomfort that life often brings: the beauty of being stuck, right here, together in the mud.
-Carissa Potter Carlson & Kate Pruitt
Left: Anna Fidler, The No in Now, 68 x 58 in, Flashe and gouache on handmade grid paper, 2020
Right: Katy Stone, Sun/Circle 3, 72 x 72 x 2 in, acrylic on DuraLar, pins, 2021
Of a Setting Sun
a two-person exhibition by Anna Fidler & Katy Stone
January 3 - March 11, 2022
Heading into Archer Gallery's first in-person, physical exhibition since winter 2020, I wanted this show to be about building captivating worlds. Drawing inspiration from formal design elements, both Anna and Katy make work based on sets of rules they create for themselves - before eventually giving way to innate knowledge and psychic connection.
Anna’s work begins with a grid. She lays down the framework for each piece by lightly drawing out perpendicular lines. These intersections act as a guide that leads her through the composition - like an architect working her way through a blueprint. From there she adds the color, leaving at least a portion of her beautiful, large-scale works to chance and intuition. Katy, on the other hand, relies on shapes to guide her, subtly pressing outward from the wall into the depth of the room. She stacks two-dimensional layers like weightless cinder blocks, forming a foundation for the eventual three-dimensionality that slowly - but surely and entrancingly - forms.
There’s a meditation that exists in this world-building - high craft that sensually pulls you in, but with enough stillness in the negative space to allow for (and even command) breath. An inhale/exhale pattern of mesmerizing repetition provides inherent life to the space, complementing each other’s works and providing escape hatches out of reality and into a world beyond. Of a Setting Sun is a gasp, a moment, a fractal, a spectrum, a whole and a fragment at once. It becomes hard to look away.
-Michelle Ramin, Of a Setting Sun curator
Lane Departure
a virtual, faculty biennial by Clark College art professors
September 20 - December 1, 2021
Conceptually thinking about the past 18 months and how much has changed, how much has stayed the same, how much of a departure from pre-pandemic "norms" the Clark College faculty have experienced, for better and worse, Lane Departure stands as a gauge of distance & space and provides a unique pedagogical perspective on art making during the pandemic. Pivoting has become an absolute part of the repertoire of teaching artists, if it wasn't already. More than ever, the question of "How important is staying in the lines?", literally and abstractly, floods to the forefront. How has the pandemic impacted teaching artists' ideas of boundaries and limits? The quintessential American road trip also comes to mind - thinking about what it means to hold both possibility and uncertainty at once, particularly after a year and a half of constantly changing restrictions, mandates, and lockdowns.
We’ve asked the Clark College art professors to depart, in some way, from their regular practice for this show. Maybe it's thematic. Maybe it's a new medium. Maybe it's an exploration, studies, sketches, etc. All work is new and made since the beginning of the pandemic, inspired in part by the theme of Lane Departure.
Art Student Annual 2021
a virtual, juried exhibition of Clark College Art Students
June 4, 2021 - August 31, 2021
Calm Under the Waves in the Blue of My Oblivion
A virtual exhibition by Yulia Pinkusevich
February 19 - May 17, 2021
Out of Nothing
A virtual & interactive exhibition by Alyson Provax
September 21, 2020 - November 8, 2020
