EOU Graduate Showcase
June 13 - July 3
In honor of the strong relationship being formed between Satellite Gallery and EOU, Satellite Gallery is proud to present its first annual Graduate Showcase. This show will feature work by graduating seniors Matthew McDonal, Christine Heap, Lisa Greif, Lucas Kruse, Ashley Heisler, and Emily Chartier.
About the Artists:Lucas Kruse
I have always lived in the enclosed Grande Ronde Valley. It’s surrounded by a circle of mountains, keeping any significant amount of contemporary culture at an uncomfortable distance. My desire for that culture had to be satisfied by comic books and film, and their ways of visually representing the world had an influence on me.
This isolation and pop culture education informs my work, and helps me create stark graphic images that emphasize an emotional distance between people, and the world around them.
The self-destruction that comes from personal isolation becomes a theme in my work. Wanting to remain hidden from relationships with other people. In my current body of work, the figures have become trapped in the bright plane surrounding them. Like an unpenetrable wall that keeps them from the real world.
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Matthew McDonal
In my work I search and capture the individuality of one’s own identity, including myself. I observe people, which I imagine that most of us do: how they talk, carry themselves and their personalities, which can bring an influence, whether it is good or bad. The beauty in all of us is the fact that we are unique in character with our own qualities and personal traits. That is what makes us special! At times we feel a sense of loneliness, questioning and asking whom we all are while trying to keep a positive outlook.
My paintings approach towards an optimism with bright cheerful color rather than invoking negativity. The background appears empty and ambiguous, defining an unclear purpose, but I patiently wait, meditating calmly for an answer. I search for my own identity and expressing others. The fused glass is a medium that reminds me that life is fragile…mentally and physically, that can easily be broken.
Ashley Heisler
Something happens when I see a piece of art and am truly moved, but there is something even more amazing for me when I can actually pick it up, hold it, turn it over and look at it from every angle, utilize it, and use all my senses to become connected with the piece. This is what is important to me, letting my work create a connection between people, places and things.
My interests lie in the rituals that every person has, daily rituals, yearly traditions, as well as the annual family get-togethers. I think what people don’t realize is how important these things are; that these customs bring people together and create a connection that is shared through each person. Each time people come together, a new link is formed, and new ways to join together are discovered. In my mind it becomes like a puzzle, there is always the correct way that it gets put together, but as the imagination wanders it discovers new ways for the pieces to combine. The utilitarian objects that I make will always have the original relationship with each other, but you can lay each object out and constantly find new junctures.
Christine Heap
This work has emerged from my desire to share personal thoughts and experiences in a form of self-portraiture using only my hands as the subject. Hands can show the nature of a person simply by viewing their movements and the way they rest. Hands can be used for healing as well as for tools. They can give a gentle touch and yet be the administrators of pain; or tenderness and cruelty. While one may school the face to stillness in order not to reveal one’s inner feelings, often the hands will subtly shift in an unconscious movement to expose that which their owner had desired to keep hidden.
I paint these hands on small hand-stretched canvases and paint with oils which allow me the ability to paint with a bold brush as well as delicate strokes. I choose to work with a limited palette with a dark background to emphasize the subjects themselves in order to draw the attention of the viewer. Painting these hands is a way for me to share a view of humanity which encompasses giving, taking, healing or rebuff while at the same time showing the intricacy and strength of the hand. A single painting is a single thought and a group may be many thoughts of one or different thoughts of many.
Hands can be as expressive as a face and by painting my hands I can reveal an aspect of myself which I am perhaps reluctant to show. I can say, ‘here I am’ without a direct confrontation with my viewer. The absence of confrontation permits me to paint more fearlessly and expressively which in turn enables the viewer a closer look at human nature and perhaps his own nature.
Emily Chartier
My new body of work reflects how injury can be related to the five stages of grieving: depression, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. I use these stages as a description of the emotional transformations created when I had to come to grips with a permanent injury. With these drawings I have found an almost obsessive desire to continue life as an independent person and find acceptance in my own soul. Later, I came to realize that this was something that many people felt when under similar circumstances.
I use medical tape to expose the broken parts of my body that would otherwise go unnoticed. This is also how I define my cane, which represents the relationship between the actual injury and the tool I used to walk with. Each stage of my grieving process was carefully delineated, with a position that reminded me of the step, and also caused me physical pain to be in. I chose to use less expression rather than more because, as "adults", we move through life trying to brave things that terrify us. Even still, each rendition still holds on to pride, like the lifeline that my cane has now come to be.
A hope that I have for these pieces is that it will give understanding to those who don’t have a similar affliction, but also give solace and peace to those that do. There are other people who are going through the same process and, unfortunately, always will.
Lisa Greif
Lisa Greif My current body of work focuses on the relationship between politeness and self-inhibition. I am interested in examining how people negotiate between considering the needs of others and asserting personal boundaries. All too often, I choose the well-laid path of compulsory niceness at the expense of honest communication and self-protection. While this is a struggle embedded in my own identity, I am interested in examining its connection to social pressures and broader human dilemmas.
This struggle for authenticity and self-hood is addressed through tedious and repetitive drawing and scraping away to reference traditional feminine work. By choosing to use traditional working methods that are both meditative and physically restrictive, I am thinking about how adhering to social expectations can be simultaneously comforting as a tool of camouflage, and alarming in terms of losing personal identity.
In my experience, pressures to be polite and accommodating blur the lines between behaviors that are pleasing to others, and what desires are internally motivated. My work questions whether it is even possible to maintain boundaries of a self that is by nature in constant flux.
Past Shows
View the various shows of the past. View slideshows, read about the artists, and get a sense of how we do things around here.