JULY 2021
CENTER GALLERY
Conversations at night with objects | Scott McDonald
This work was done during the long nights of last winter. They are studies of objects and places. When I paint I try not to mediate my decisions, try not to make sense of them. I try to have confidence to follow an inner voice. In my work you’ll see repeated images. I’m interested in the chaos that happens when the same actions are repeated—how they eke out their individuality and take new shape.
Scott McDonald is a life long Alaskan. He tried to leave but always bounced back. Scott lives in Anchorage with his wife, Ashley, and two kids—seven and nine. He currently teaches elementary art for the Anchorage School District. He often spends summers in Homer, Alaska and enjoys the usual things: skiing, fishing, biking.… Scott received his BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MAT from Alaska Pacific University.
Ewelina Skowronska, that's me, that's me, that's me, from if not, winter series, 2019, limited edition hand pulled screen print on Japanese Izumi paper with airbrush on selected elements, 50 x 70 cm
JULY 2021
NORTH GALLERY
Fragments of Beauty | Ewelina Skowronska
Ewelina Skowronska. Photo credit: Maciej Komorowski.
The self is as puzzling concept as mental, mind, and consciousness, however we all are sure that we have our own distinctive self. But is it really ours? Created during our live through deliberated choices? Or maybe there are also different pieces, the remains that influence who we are?
Reading fragments of poems written by Sappho, the earliest and most famous Greek woman poet, living and creating around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos, make me wonder about what is absent and what is present in the idea of self. Out of around 10,000 lines of Sappho poetry only 2 full poems survived, the rest what we have access today is just fragments. Small pieces of text, the unknowns, missing gaps … but also an opportunity for new personal interpretations.
“if not, winter” is body of work created mostly during artist residency at Shirakino Art Village in Minamishimabara, early in 2020. The series, inspired by fragments of Sappho - lyrics depicting feminine beauty, desire and rejecting the world of masculine warfare - explores issues connected with gender, identity, sexuality and the body. Drawing from personal experience, Ewelina Skowronska touches subjects connected with the experience of living within the body, and the ways gender and sexuality intersect to form complex identities. Much is left to the imagination while working with the fragments of Sappho however, thinking about language, as being both shared and personal, what are the new meanings and connections we could take for ourselves? Especially now, during such an uneasy time with the uncertain future.
Visual artist and printmaker (b. 1980 in Poland, currently lives and works in Tokyo). After having an accomplished career in advertising, Ewelina decided to fully dedicate herself to art in 2013. She retrained and studied visual arts at University of the Arts London where she graduated with distinction in 2015. The female body is at the forefront of Ewelina’s prints and ceramic sculptures, exploring issues connected with gender, identity, sexuality and the body. She draws from her personal experience touching subjects connected with the experience of living within the body, as well as the way race, gender, and sexuality intersect to form complex identities. Ewelina’s work has been exhibited in London, Ireland, USA, Canada, Poland, and Japan. In 2017, she was awarded the Print Prize by ST Bridge Foundation, and in 2018 she was shortlisted for Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize 2018. Her prints are in the collection of VA Museum London; Spiral Wacoal Art Foundation, Tokyo, Japan; Guanlan Printmaking Museum, China and many more.
Alaska Bookmobile. Photo by Michael Conti.
JULY 2021
SOUTH GALLERY
Floor Show | Alaska Bookmobile
The Floor Show features prints by artists that were invited to carve scraps of linoleum leftover from a recent project to replace the Alaska Bookmobile’s 20 year old carpeting with linoleum. The Alaska Bookmobile is a mobile free library / venue on wheels. A 23 foot bus, built to be a library, the Bookmobile retired from service in 2018, after 20 years at the Allegany Library in Pennsylvania, and moved to Alaska in the Fall of 2019, now calling Anchorage home. It offers free art supplies, books and other media. The Bookmobile is also available to help with a variety of types of projects & events, offering access to our growing list of resources.
Artists: Tara Devlin, Bryce Nicolasa Fredrick, Brian Hutton, Sheila Kratzer, Scott McDonald, Tommy O'Malley, Jessica Thornton, Levi Werner and Thalia Wilkinson. Curated by Jimmy Riordan.
