David Ensminger, curator - “The Secret History of Punk Rock: Visual Vitriol”
University of Oregon Folklore graduate student David Ensminger, with the support of the program, curates a collection of punk posters and flyers, also known as urban folk art, instant Xerox art, and street style vernacular expressions. The main room exhibition will also feature potent photography and ephemera culled from punk archives and a looped, original documentary video featuring bands like TSOL and Circle Jerks. The content focuses on do-it-yourself, often handmade posters that will survey over 30 years of subculture history. Featuring a broad range of work from North America, Europe, and Asia, the exhibition will also focus on the often-ignored contributions of women, gays and lesbians, and people of color in punk.
Lotte Streisinger - “Arts and Letters”
For more than 40 years Streisinger worked as a potter, selling at the Saturday Market and elsewhere. When back surgery made clay work too heavy, she turned to printmaking and writing. She has written two books: From the Sidelines, a personal history of the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon (where her husband was a founding member) and The Potter and the Muse, in which the creative process is illustrated through clay. Both books include her linocut prints as illustrations. Having always loved illustrated books, it was a particular pleasure for her to create these books for adults. She poured over picture books as a child and later read them to her children and her grandchildren. This love of illustrated children’s books led to her love of the arts. Streisinger’s exhibit will present both her original prints and how Portland book designer, Chris Michel, manipulated these prints into book illustrations. Also on view will be a print series, "The Months," which the artist worked on while waiting for her second book to be published.
On Saturday, March 15 at 3 PM Streisinger will give a reading from The Potter and the Muse at the DIVA center.
Demetrius González - "Beneath the Skin: 100 Nudes"
González presents an exhibit of photographic works depicting the nude human form. He took his first photography class at the University of Oregon Craft Center while pursuing his Bachelor of Architecture degree. He continued his education at The Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture and received a Master of Philosophy degree.
“Photography of the naked body can and should be artful, celebratory, and reverential,” the artist says about his work. He seeks to depict the human form in its most honest beauty without treating a person as an object but instead working to make connections in all directions with the subject. His photography relies on spontaneity and improvisation and an openness to possibilities.
His process begins with the straightforward appreciation of the human body, first from a primal place as a human male, then adding layers of geometry and personality. “I hope to go beneath the surface of skin, not only glorifying the body, but also the complex dance of a particular personality, time, place, mood, light. “
“I believe the human body is among the most beautiful 'things' on earth. From a purely geometric point of view, the body, especially the female body, has deep primal roots in our being, as the creator of life,” says González.
Adam Rupniewski - “iTeraTion”
The installation titled "iTeraTion" is the artist’s intuitive game of associations as
well as his comment on Albrecht Durer's masterpiece "Melencolia I" and
the alchemical thought process described in his work, reiterated and interpreted by Rupniewski in a modern, abbreviated way. “This image has been with me always, somewhere there...in my life and in me.”
"iTeraTion" is also, on the formal level, a repetition in the visual sense, pre-conscious, immediate and minimalistic.
Rupniewski is from Poland but resides in Portland, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally in Germany and Poland; this is the first exhibit of his work in Eugene. His installations focus on the relationship of objects to other objects, as well as objects to space. The aesthetic value lies in proportion and geometrical arrangements, which sometimes are accompanied by performance and soundtracks produced by the artist. He says “Music…inspires me in the final execution of my installations.”
Renee Couture - “Paisajes”
Couture says regarding her mixed media ceramic work, “As an artist whose preferred medium is clay, I respect ceramic traditions but am not bound by them—this connects me to both the past and the future.” At first glance, the small stoneware wall hangings appear to be floating. By using multiple forms that when hung together creates one work, Couture uses repetition and pattern to produce sketches of light and shadow on the wall. She accents her works with human hair, some of which is her own, to create a compelling juxtaposition between hard and soft, touchable and untouchable, form and shadow, curiosity and repulsion. Her work is infused with gender, culture, superstition, and one’s personal environment. Concerned with the small moments within a work, she attempts to focus on the small details to entice the viewer by creating interesting surface qualities. Additionally, there are small freestanding sculptures complimenting the wall pieces with their smooth, sleek forms.
Renee Couture currently resides in Glide, Oregon. She graduated with a B.A. in Studio Art and Spanish from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, in 1999. After graduating, she traveled in the United States and spent three years living, working, and traveling in South America
DIVA Members Gallery - “Nature- Sacred Feminine Perspectives” Kosjenka Filipovic & Shirley M. Collins
In this exhibit, nature inspires a passion for living. Filipovic and Collins joyously view nature as an intimate reflection of the sacred feminine. Their vision is that the presence of the sacred feminine is embodiedin the endless variation and beauty of leaves and with the images of water.
Kosjenka Filipovic was born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia, where she attended University of Zagreb and studied art history and literature. She has now lived in the Northwest for almost 30 years and is currently teaching creative workshops for women. She has exhibited in various art shows in Oregon and is currently displaying her work in galleries in Eugene and on the coast.
Shirley M. Collins is a photographer and author, combing her prose and imagery to capture a sense of spirituality and memory through nature. She is currently working on a series of limited edition handmade books, incorporating both her prose and photographic images to emphasize the tie to nature and spirituality.
