Matthew Olds
Janice La Verne Baker
Gallery One’s exhibits open on the first Friday of most months in conjunction with the Ellensburg Art Walk.
Click here for a full walking tour and map.
August 2-31, 2019
Opening Reception: August 2, 5-8pm
Exhibit Sponsors:
Cornerstone Pie
D&M Coffee
Valley Vision & Hearing Associates
Main Gallery:
(De)Construction
Tori Karpenko, Natalie Niblack, Matthew Olds
Hailing from all corners of the state, each of these three artists use their own unique style of creation to convey themes of construction, destruction, migration, connection and loss.
Tori Karpenko explores personal and communal stories through the lens of people, place, and the effect they have on each other. He is fascinated by the creation of culture, by our unique responses to our ecosystem, and by the outcomes that emerge from how an individual or a society chooses to live. By first destroying wood with fire, he then rebuilds his paintings on the charred surface.
Natalie Niblack’s current paintings are a response to a dilemma. She paints the horror of oil explosions, and the devastation of wildfires from parched landscapes and extreme weather systems because she recognizes she is a part of the consumer economy that created them. Her meticulously painted surfaces and vibrant imagery belie the underlying theme of destruction and loss.
Matthew Olds uses paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture and music to investigating the well-worn notion of adventure, contemplation, and revelation found on the rural roads of America and more specifically in this case, in the American West. He understands that the American road trip is a well worn out trope that is both problematic and troubling based on a deeper understanding of the suffering and displacement that occurred to acquire these lands in the first place to allow such a trip and therefore the romance of it to exist. It is in pieces like “Call Me When You Get There” that speaks to the universality of being on the road and/or being away from loved ones that reminds us that we are all far more connected by what we largely have in common (family, love, loss) than what we don’t. In a time where purposeful attempts to painfully and forcibly divide this nation and even the world at large exists, this commonality cannot and should not be forgotten for it is the bridge to understanding and respect that alone can span and close the divide before it irrevocably gets too wide.
Meet the Artists
Tori Karpenko & Natalie Niblack
Wednesday, August 14, 4pm – FREE
Meet the current exhibiting artists as they share their art process with you. Learn about their unique creative approaches with their art as a backdrop.
Eveleth Green Gallery:
Dear Diary: I Am What I Am
Janice La Verne Baker
Janice is a mixed media artist and photographer. Born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s, she is always telling stories in two dimensions. Her latest body of work is a mixed media, collage installation of diary pages depicting snippets of memories and stories from throughout her life. Check out more info on her lecture and workshop coming up in August.