Claire Cowie’s Unreliable Source is an installation of new sculpture, works-on-paper, and photographs rooted in folklore and personal mythology. Through surreal and dreamlike imagery, this exhibit addresses issues of family, community and culture, and how we make meaning and understand the world. Can we trust what we know or what we are told? Is there any veracity to memory, and what if our memory has disappeared? How can we navigate the waters of this life? Her investigation has produced a multifaceted installation, dense and rich with complex references, including family photographs, African and Native American sculpture, and folktales. Fingers beckon from the walls of the gallery. Delicate washes of ink, watercolor with elements of collage upon paper speak to an imaginative narrative. Masks question who we are supposed to be. Like any good folktale, there are moments of darkness and elements of hope in this body of work. What gives the work its seductive power is that the story is left open for the viewer to construct his or her own narrative.
 
Claire Cowie attended both the North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem, NC) and Washington University in St. Louis (St. Louis, MO). She received her MFA from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA). Cowie’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including shows at the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA), Takeda Biennial (Oaxaca, Mexico), Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), Frye Art Museum (Seattle, WA), Shenzhen Art Institute (Shenzhen, China), Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Lake Oswego, OR). Her work is included in the collections of the Henry Art Gallery, Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA), Safeco (Seattle, WA), and Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), among others.

With ‘Symptomatic’ Michelle Ross examines the relationship between abstract painting and digital photography, a medium used to record, disseminate, and contextualize painting. In this exhibition she conflates the reception of both by presenting photographed paintings on paper alongside paintings on panel. The project is an exploration of the values we assign to the language of materials, to original and copy, and the mutability of meaning. Using pages from W magazine as a foundation for constructing abstract images, typographic design and fashion photography are translated into idiosyncratic formalism. As with her work utilizing fabric and collage, she continues to use abstraction as a method of transforming the ubiquitous and familiar.
 
Ross received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and her MFA from Washington State University (Pullman, WA). Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including those at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA), The Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Lake Oswego, OR), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), and Rome International University (Rome, Italy). In 2012, Ross was named as a Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts. Her work is held by a number of collections including the Rhode Island School of Design Special Collections (Providence, RI), the City of Portland, Willamette University (Salem, OR), Saks Fifth Avenue and the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR) in both its main collection and in the Gilkey Print Center.

You’re Welcome
UO Digital Arts BFA Exhibition
May 22 – June 29, 2013
 
Join us and the University of Oregon Digital Arts Program as we present the 2013 Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition in the White Box. The exhibition focuses on subtle narratives and the exploration of personal identity through a mix of large-scale installations with detailed illustrative compositions. Choosing to highlight the tangible materials of traditional studio practice, digital influence and process take a back seat to the content and presentation of this year’s BFA student’s work.
 
Special Reception
First Thursday June 6, 2013
6pm – 9pm
 
Facebook Event: www.facebook.com/events/399125796868368/?fref=ts
 
More information: yourewelcomebfa.com/