The Low Residency MFA in Visual Studies presents the 2022 Thesis Exhibition series, featuring Stashia Cabral, Élan Chardin, Laura Jean Foster, Amy Gibson, Ondrea Levey, Kelly Marshall, lynn ruth stephens, Devon Pardue, Jenny Wilde, and Ahuva S. Zaslavsky

The exhibition series hosts receptions every Thursday from July 7th through August 11th from 6-8pm. 511 NW Broadway, Portland. Free + open to the public.

The exhibitions take place for five weeks across the galleries of PNCA including the Center for Contemporary Art & Visual Culture (CCAC), the Design Corridor, Holt Gallery, Gallery 157, and the Mediatheque, and are open during regular opening hours at PNCA, 8:00 AM–5:00 PM daily.

Each week, a new solo exhibition or series of solo exhibitions will open periodically throughout the summer with a reception for in-person viewing on the Thursday of each week and public thesis defenses noted on the schedule below. Installation documentation will be available August 19th on PNCA’s Online Gallery. In-person viewings will be available by sign-in at the PNCA security desk during regular building hours from 8:00 AM–5:00 PM daily. Masks and social distancing are encouraged.

Every Corner is Alive asks questions of our shared environments in a moment of grief and uncertainty: How do we approach landscapes, or the idea of a so-called natural expanses of earth, sky, water, or air, when the world itself is burning? Can we consider what writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit described as the mysterious “conjunction between time, place, and celestial body” from corners of the sky to our discrete rooms? Or do our current “scapes” of all kinds threaten to overburden, overwhelm, and overtake us? Solnit’s turning towards associational relationships—word and image, sky and location—leads us to the stories that enliven our shared environment together.

In this series of exhibitions, realized as the culmination of the Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) of Willamette University, works by Stashia Cabral, Élan Chardin, Laura Jean Foster, Amy Gibson, Ondrea Levey, Kelly Marshall, lynn ruth stephens, Devon Pardue, Jenny Wilde, and Ahuva S. Zaslavsky embody environments that query the limits and relationships of our shared space-times. Their installations, sculptures, paintings, textiles, videos, performances, ceramics, and photographs disclose disparate constellations of relationships, but articulate collective being.

Every Corner is Alive is presented by the PNCA’s Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies Low-Residency in Visual Studies MFA and is co-curated by artist and curator, Simone Fischer and art historian, writer, and Director of Curatorial Affairs at Artspace New Haven, Laurel V. McLaughlin, with support from former Chair and Associate Professor of the Low-Residency in Visual Studies, Aeron Bergman; current Associate Professor of the Low-Residency MFA Program in Visual Studies, Ryan Pierce; Program Coordinator for Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies, Erin Dengerink, and Hannah Bakken, Interim Director, Center for Contemporary Art and Culture.

Image Credit: Kelly Marshall, Oneida Rose Soup Spoon, 2022. Trace Monotype on BFK Paper, 9 x 12 in.

Visitor information: Opening Exhibition runs from 6-8pm on 7/7/22; open during PNCA hours 8:00am-5:00pm daily until 8/18/22

Type: Exhibition

Cost: Free

Diversity: BIPOC , LGBTQIA+ , Women/Femme

Accessibility: Wheelchair Accessible

ALT Text: A poster for PNCA's 2022 Low Res MFA Visual Studies Thesis Exhibition