All the Other Days (Los Demás Días)

Jodie Cavalier

1/18/24 – 3/29/24

Dengerink Gallery, VDEN Building

Untitled (sunburst), Jodie Cavalier, Cardboard, paper, plastic, and wire, 2024

“The works in this exhibition are an extension of the artist’s studio work and research around grief and celebration. Materials and rituals are combined with references to direct people and memories to create a visual story of what was, and what remains.

Las esculturas de esta exposición de arte son una extensión del trabajo de estudio del artista y de su investigación sobre el dolor y la celebración. Los materiales y rituales se combinan con referencias a personas directas y recuerdos para crear una historia visual de lo que fue y lo que queda.” – Jodie Cavalier

All the Other Days (Los Demás Días), Jodie Cavalier, 2024

A World of Light and Shadow, Jodie Cavalier, Riso print, 2022

Jodie Cavalier is a conceptual artist living in Portland, Oregon. She earned a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Her work has been exhibited with Converge 45’s Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project in Portland, OR; the Schneider Museum in Ashland, OR; the deYoung Museum in San Francisco, CA; the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, CA; CoCA in Seattle, WA; Practice in New York, NY; and Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany; among others. She has participated in residencies such as ONCA in Brighton, England; the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, UT; Wassaic in Wassaic, NY; and AZ West in Joshua Tree, CA.

Untitled (sunburst), Jodie Cavalier, Cardboard, paper, plastic, and wire, 2024

BLOCK PARTY

ZEINAB SAAB

8/21/23 – 12/15/23

Dengerink Gallery, VDEN Building

Block Party, Zeinab Saab, Acrylic on paper, 2023

“Block Party demonstrates the limitless nature of design using color theory and the grid, providing unapologetically loud, inescapable visual pleasure. Titles of works allude to distress, past trauma, frustration, feeling lost, and fear of the unknown. Pairing these difficult ideas with lush color creates a deflection of reality, allowing the viewer to take temporary refuge in a world of vibrant delusion. The grid becomes a “safety net” that catches moments of euphoria, whether major or minor. Now, when it feels like we are all on the precipice of collapse, the grid gathers and gives structure to these fleeting moments of joy. Allow yourself to be held in place for a moment, and enjoy the party while it lasts.” – Zeinab Saab

Block Party (detail), Zeinab Saab, Acrylic on paper, 2023

Originally from Dearborn, Michigan, Zeinab Saab is currently based in Portland, Oregon, where they are a professor of art at Portland Community College, Sylvania Campus. Their current work focuses on exploration of childhood nostalgia through color theory and the grid. Saab received a BFA in Printmaking and Drawing from Bowling Green State University in 2015, and an MFA in Printmaking at Northern Illinois University in 2019. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at The Sharjah Museum, Cue Art Foundation, and the San Francisco Center for the Book, among other venues. The work is held in permanent collections, including those of The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Emory University, The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, the Arab American National Museum, and Zayed University.

Smelling the Sound of Color, Zeinab Saab, Acrylic on paper, 2023

Smelling the Sound of Color (detail), Zeinab Saab, Acrylic on paper, 2023

It’s Not Me, It’s You

Contemporary Issues Seminar Students

4/29/23 – 5/7/23

1005 Main Street Gallery

Rhythm, Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Yarn and wood, 2021

It’s Not Me, It’s You is a group show of mixed media works by Fine Arts students at Washington State University, Vancouver.

The works exist independently of any meaning on the part of the artist, but invite the viewers to respond. A dichotomy exists and proposes a contemporary “purpose” of art. What is art supposed to do? Who is art for? It’s Not Me, It’s You symbolizes the ambiguous interpretations that viewers create when attempting to connect the images or the title of the exhibition. The artist simply provides the art, and the viewer gives it a meaning.

Installation shot of It’s Not Me, It’s You.

It’s Not Me, It’s You Exhibition Poster and Zine, Designed by Josalyn Ortiz and Kevin Lennon

It’s Not Me, It’s You showcases a variety of media and includes work by Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Hannah Burbach, Juan Carlos Garcia Gonzalez, Arlo Hammontree, Jaclyn Hannemann, Seth Jordan, Kevin Lennon, Travis Morey, Josalyn Ortiz, Bibiana Picho-Garcia and Alexandra White.

Guest artists who have impacted these students through visits, exhibits and lectures include Karl Burkheimer, Chris Chandler, Shara Chwaliszewski, Marianna Cruz, Erin Dengerink, Sammy Garcia and Meghann Gilligan-Koehn.

Left: Onrage Pnaitnig, Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Acrylic on wood panel, 2022
Middle: AB049, Chris Chandler, Monotype relief print, 2023
Right: Nature Series, Hannah Burbach, Digital prints, 2019-2021

Left:Through Their Eyes, Jaclyn Hannemann, Acrylic paint on wood panel, 2022
Middle: Walking the Dog, Kevin Lennon, Installation, 2023
Right: Onrage Pnaitnig, Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Acrylic on wood panel, 2022

This exhibition is curated by and includes the work of students in Professor Avantika Bawa’s Fine Arts Contemporary Issues Seminar.

Work by Josalyn Ortiz (top right) and Karl Burkheimer (bottom left)

The 27th Annual Fine Arts Student Exhibition

4/10/23 – 8/11/23

Dengerink Gallery, VDEN Building

Installation shot of The 27th Annual Fine Arts Student Exhibition

The 27th Annual Fine Arts Student Exhibition features work made in a wide range of art classes from the past year. In these classes, students from different majors across campus practice the building of form, the process of conceptual development, critical thinking, and the value of a commitment to craft. The Fine Arts Department at Vancouver believes that mark-making is an essential human activity, exploring the connection between contemporary art, culture, and the built environment.

O Horizon, Jaycee Ritola, Ink on paper

Left: Fleuri du chagrin, Hunter McLamb, Linocut
Middle: ¡Calaveras con Ritmo!, Marianna Cruz, Linocut
Right: Rising to the Surface, Sammy Garcia, Linocut

In addition to works made by students, this year we also present re(re)site. (re)site, a recent solo show by artist Karl Burkheimer, included a drywall monolithic structure and occupied the VDEN Gallery from 1/18 – 4/9. This work served as a platform that encouraged collaborations and interventions from the students, staff and faculty of the WSU Vancouver community. By drawing, painting, printing, and wheat-pasting on this surface, either through specific prompts or pure intuition, the works soon became the work of not just one artist, but the community of our campus. Authorship was now a blurry line.

3D Practice Forms from left to right: Sami Francis, Nicole Nelson, and Mattie Whitters

As a final gesture to the spirit of intervention and the WSU Vancouver student show, the gallery committee selected graduating senior, Jamie Anoai-Shroyer to create one final grand intervention. The work was covered in a translucent white paint alluding to its past, reemerging to its semi-original state as monolithic form. The geometric orange shapes are a continuation of Jamie’s interests in language, text, meaning and abstraction, and the power of sustained looking to recognize patterns.

Karl Burkheimer’s (re)site with Intervention by Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Acrylic on drywall

Artists: Jamie Anoai-Shroyer, Marianna Cruz, Olivia Eldredge, Sami Francis, Sammy Garcia, Delancy Hizer, Annika Larman, Hunter McLamb, Haley Shea Miller, Courtney Minden, Travis Morey, Nicole Nelson, Josalyn Ortiz, Jose Pinerua, Jaycee Ritola, Stephanie Walsh, Xander Warren, and Mattie Whitters.

Broken Record, Annika Larman, Ink on paper

Vital Earthing

Janet Rodriguez

2/13/23 – 5/5/23

Science & Engineering Building, 1st and 2nd Floor Galleries

CALL MOTHER, Chia seeds, mist of water, bandage wrap, time

“Exploring themes of life, time, decay, and resilience, Vital Earthing is a series of multimedia sculptures that combine functional and non-functional materials, both living and non-living. Viewers are encouraged to connect to the work through sight and smell using their own personal experiences, memories, and associations of the natural and artificial objects within the space. Get up close to the work and let the scent of dried lavender petals lull you into comfort.

Continuous Vestige, Stretched canvas, red yarn, moss, brown mesh

We can learn from Indigenous people who interact with nature directly, including the use of smell, as a way to better understand changes in the natural world. The stretched, wrapped, and stitched nylon pieces express the disproportionate impact of climate change on people of color and the decades of putting up with its effects. The ephemerality of life and the unavoidable force of decay show the urgency of taking action now. We must make a change that will benefit everyone as well as the natural environment we live in.”

-Janet Rodriguez

Spice and Everything Nice, Dried lavender, ground cinnamon, tumeric powder, teal mesh

Janet Rodriguez is an Oregon-born multimedia artist of Mexican descent working in Vancouver, Washington. Surrounded by the greenery of the Pacific Northwest, she has combined her love for nature and art. She has a BA in Fine Arts with a Minor in Environmental Science at Washington State University Vancouver. Her work has been seen around campus in the Dengerink Gallery, the Library Gallery, and the Strouse Gallery.

(re)site

Karl Burkheimer

1/23/23 – 3/31/23

Dengerink Gallery, VDEN Building

“The large grey dog seems to be the subject of the photo, yet the warm yellow-brown tones of late fall and a rusty steel bridge creates a confusing background that muddies the visual space and the viewers’ focus. Created during the era of point-and-shoot film cameras and 1 hour film development, the photo is a mere moment in a quickly receding past. Without context, the snapshot is neutral, conveying only what the viewer cares to consider. For the photographer the photo excites recollections of a specific hike with a beloved pet along an abandoned rail line during an unseasonably warm Thanksgiving weekend in Piedmont North Carolina. A few years later, on another Thanksgiving weekend, the dog died, continuing the refrain of impermanence.

“The built environment is the result of an inherently provisional act of cajoling space through the manipulation of matter. Humanity’s inability to achieve perfection and the natural world’s resistance to permanence assures a futility in making, while simultaneously perpetuating a creative instinct to pursue the exceptional or even the mundane or the abject.

“My creative endeavor is a manifestation of practice, a repeated return to the process of searching, making, and reflecting. The exhibited works become moments of exchange, temporal incarnations, and placeholders, emphasizing an ad hoc language of materials and processes in flux. Actions, efforts, and materials are employed to surround an emptiness, as the objects and images on view become markers adjacent to the focus of consideration. Thus, the work is allusive; only the residue of making is present.”

-Karl Burkheimer

Over the course of the exhibition, (re)site, will evolve, shifting in form and meaning with input and interaction by WSUV art students and faculty.

Burkheimer creates utilitarian and artistic objects that address labor, skill, precedent and intent through a language of utility. His works have been exhibited in the United States and internationally. He holds an MFA in woodworking from the department of crafts at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; and a bachelor’s degree in environmental design in architecture from North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

Escape from… is a series of installations by students in the Beginning Drawing class of the Fine Arts Department. Curated by Professor Avantika Bawa, these works are informed by the interior architecture of sites around campus, including the Library, the Writing Center and Firstenburg Student Commons.

Scattered throughout these sites you will find these artworks, some that are easy to locate, while some just creep up on you. Each installation takes into account the site where it is installed, either by responding directly to the surrounding architecture, or the function of that particular area. In some cases, the works are the result of an imagination gone wild, while thinking of an alternative purpose of that location.

From Beyond the Deep

Amelia Seley, Brent Ocampo, Robert Sagastume, and Valorie Worden

The Writing Center

The Lesser Seen Things

Lucas Rogers, Xander Williams, Evan Renfro, and Victoria Moehring

Firstenburg Student Commons

A Walk in the Rainforest

Sorya Baxter, Teresa Patron Rivera, and Adrian Chwaliszewski

The Library

A World of Possibilities

Allison Balogh, Navleen Kaur, Mary Nguyen, and Liliya Tarkovskaya

The Library

Things Becoming Things

Shara Chwaliszewski

9/6/2022 – 12/16/2022

Science and Enginnering Building (VSCI), 1st and 2nd Floor Galleries

Left: Molded, Wire, metal, and acrylic on canvas
Middle: Purple Glaze (detail), Acrylic on canvas
Right: Creature and Unmolding, Paper and plaster

Things Becoming Things, on display throughout the Science and Engineering Building (VSCI) is an exploration of texture, color, and form. Raw canvas – painted, glazed, crumpled, and suspended. Cardboard or Styrofoam packaging covered with paper and glaze in layers upon layers upon layers until it transcends its purpose and becomes a new thing. Reclaimed or simple materials and repetitive, almost meditative, processes characterize my approach. As I struggle against or am guided by the inclinations of the medium, working with intention but no preconceived direction, a story begins to tell itself. Manipulation of outward form makes inner doubts fall away, and all is reduced to a conversation between my hands and the material.

Some pieces were removed from the gallery and relocated to other areas in the building to allow the remaining works room to breathe, and to further investigate the relationship between the object and the space it occupies.

Toxicityscape, Stryofoam and paper

Born on Canada’s eastern coast, Shara Chwaliszewski has made her home in the Pacific Northwest since 2006. Working in several mediums, she creates two- and three-dimensional works that are non-objective but often biomorphic. Shara is a Washington State University Vancouver alum (BA English, 2020; BA Fine Arts, 2021) and works as a tutor at the WSU Vancouver Writing Center when she is not making art in her backyard studio in Camas, WA.

Left: Imperfect Measures, Clock, paper, bamboo, and plaster
Right bottom: Spring, Sprang, Sprung Metal trap, paper, clothespins
Right top: Cephalopodcast, Bamboo roots, paper, and screen

Modular Shifts

Chris Chandler

8/22/2022 – 12/16/2022

Dengerink Gallery, VDEN Building

Modular Shifts, Relief print installation, 18′ x 10′, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery

“Modular Shifts is a series of prints based on the construction and deconstruction of modular type. I use the Vandercook 232P letterpress machine, Alpha-Blox & Futura Schmuck woodcut fonts to combine shapes, letters, words and phrases and then abstract them through rearranging, tearing, wheat pasting, layering, and shifting. The simplicity of breaking the alphabet down into its most basic elements allows for a seemingly endless combination of shapes that appeal to my analog self.” – Chris Chandler

Left: Fade-Out, Variable relief print, 11’x54.5″, 2022
Right: AB043, Monotype relief print, 2022, 48″x48″x2″, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Fade-Out (detail)
Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Chris Chandler founded Neu Haus Press in 1996 after he acquired his first Vandercook Press in Venice Beach, CA. Through the years his love, talent, and knowledge for this vintage craft has grown — inspired by pioneers of graphic design like master typographer Jan Tschichold, Bauhaus, Constructivist El Lissitzky, and the Expressionist painter and printmaker Erich Heckel.

In addition to his printmaking, Chris spent 30 years working as a tour manager and sound engineer in the music industry. He has had the privilege of sharing his passion for letterpress with a variety of musicians, leading to intimate collaborations and the opportunity to print their work. Making his home in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two children, Chris has been able to expand his studio and printing portfolio. He is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR.

This collection of work exhibits how Chris takes advantage of his Vandercook 232P with a 30” x 32” printing bed to recreate and experiment with the 1943 Alpha-Blox font in large form in order to push the limits of letterpress.

Left: The Space Between Us, Monotype relief print, 48″x48″x2″, 2021
Right: AB039, Monotype relief print, 2021, 48″x48″x2″, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Makeready, Monotype relief print, 26″x26″, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Leach Gallery