Julia Bradshaw, Read, Yellow, Green Book Stacks 67" x 14" Inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Focus:Refocus, A Photographic Resurgence, is an exhibition of photography by Steve Anchell, Chris Becerra, Julia Bradshaw, Harrison Branch and Jim Folts, which opens Jan. 14 in Fairbanks Gallery. A reception for the artists will be held from 4:30-5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 16.

Focus:Refocus, A Photographic Resurgence will feature the work of all five OSU art faculty instructors and features a wide-ranging selection of photographic visions. This exhibition marks the reintroduction of the BFA and BA/BS program in photography at OSU. It is anticipated that the revamping of photography as a stand along degree program will enrich the curriculum and could prompt enrollments with the potential to become one of the fastest growing programs in Art.

Photographs from Show Me Your Tattoo!, by Steve Anchell, explores the patterns that have emerged in tattoos and piercings. Anchell considers them as part of our primal culture. He writes, “There is evidence among indigenous tribes that they are often as not used to identify members of one tribe from another; to create a tribal identity. I believe that the rise of the tattoo culture is an unconscious (conscious?) attempt to find ones way back to the tribe; the search for a common identity.”

Anchell is an internationally published artist and author. He has exhibited his work in numerous galleries and public collections. He has published three books, The Darkroom Cookbook, The Variable Contrast Printing Manual, and The Film Developing Cookbook. He is a contributing writer for Rangefinder and Photo Technique magazines, and has written columns, feature articles and interviews for Shutterbug, View Camera, Camera Arts, PIC, and PhotoPro magazines. He is also the former editor of the magazines, Photovision: Art and Technique and Focus Fine Art Photography. As of 2012, Anchell is a new instructor of Art at Oregon State University.

Chris Becerra, who won Oregon Bride Magazine’s Best Wedding Photographer in 2010, has taught at Oregon State University since Spring 2011.  He has also worked as the primary photographer for political campaigns throughout Oregon, California and Montana.  Becerra writes, “When a work is printed there is no place to hide. Every imperfection in the lighting, focus and composition is laid bare for all to see. Having displayed my images primarily in a digital format, I wanted to challenge myself by creating large prints where all the imperfections and mistakes would be visible.”

Julia Bradshaw’s work Read, Yellow, Green explores both photography and books. Her work investigates the rise of the digital age and the transformation of both mediums. Bradshaw writes, “The images question photographic truth-telling and the properties of photography such as what is gained or lost with the conversion of color images to black and white.” She continues, “By creating life-size stacks of books, the images become characters- taking in the traces and characteristics of their readers- and at the same time the impossibly tall stacks of books make uncertain the veracity of photographic images.”

Born in Manchester England, Bradshaw spent nine years living and working in Munich, Germany prior to moving to the United States. These international moves and her background in international project management are the fodder for her creative focus in making artworks that respond to language and cultural exchanges. She received her MFA in photography from San Jose State University in 2007 and works with photography, video and performance. Her works have been exhibited in Germany, the Netherlands and throughout the United States. A recent arrival in Oregon from California, she is assistant professor for photography and video art at Oregon State University.

Harrison Branch focuses on Palladium/Platinum photographs printed as contact prints.  He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and Yale University. Branch has been exhibited nationally, and is included in the collections of the International Center of Photography, NY; Oakland Museum, Oakland, California; and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France.

Jim Folts’s work shows the artist’s interest in photographing people. He writes, “I like the challenge of attempting to capture people in action, not posed, doing what they actually do. I like the authenticity of the resulting images. But I am equally challenged by the collaborative portrait, where I work with the subject not only to capture their likeness, but also something of their personality, of what makes them a unique human being.”

Folts has been a professional photographer for 40 years. He began his career as a newspaper photographer and magazine freelance photographer. His work has been published in newspapers and national magazines. He is the author of a standard national textbook on the techniques of photography and another on the history of photography. For 40 years he has been a Professor of Art at Oregon State University, teaching ~

~Douglas Russell

Michael Lazarus, “Moon”, acrylic, collage, and mirror on wood, 26” x 18”, 2008-2009

You Are Real, an exhibit of mixed media work by Michael Lazarus, opened Nov. 5 in Fairbanks Gallery.

Lazarus’ carefully crafted artwork explores iconography through the use of bold color, text and stylized imagery that creates a powerful dynamism. His hypnotic designs and metaphorical images, such as snakes, skulls and ribcages, produce works that are frightening yet beautiful.

In his exhibit, “You Are Real,” Lazarus uses found or purchased signs, or sometimes signs that he has personally created. Lazarus’ interest in the function of signs is how they operate as objects that carry meaning. “These works use very few images in each work,” say Lazarus, and “they are closer to portraiture in the way they operate.”

Lazarus lives and works in Portland, OR.

Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and Fridays from 8 a.m.-noon. The exhibit concludes on Nov. 28.

~ Douglas Russell

Sean Caulfield, Phlegyas, Mezzotint, digital, Chine collé, 6” x 5.5”, 2007

“Darkfire” and “The Waiting Room,” an exhibit by Sean Caulfield, with collaborators Sue Colberg and Jonathan Hart, opens Oct. 10 in Fairbanks Gallery.

Darkfire, and The Waiting Room is an exhibition of two collaborative artist’s books, which explore the interface of visual art, design and creative writing. Each of these works is exhibited framed and unbound in the gallery, consisting of mezzotint prints by Caulfield, accompanied by poems written by Hart, with Colberg’s book design, which consists of a title page, text layout, colophon, and portfolio box.

In creating Darkfire and The Waiting Room, Caulfield, Hart and Colberg used themes and poetic images taken from Dante’s Inferno and Purgatory as a common start for each of their image and text pairings. They eventually worked towards responding to all three volumes of Dante’s famous work. Caulfield, Hart and Colberg share an ongoing interest in the Divine Comedy, as well as with the long history of illustration associated with this work by Blake and Botticelli.

Sean Caulfield is a Centennial Professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, and has exhibited his prints, drawings and artist’s books extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Susan Colberg, who teaches Visual Communication Design at the University of Alberta, is a Fellow of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. Her research and practice focus on book and publication design and typography.

Sean Caulfield, Waiting and Yearning, Mezzotint and Chine collé, 12” x 12”, 2010.

Jonathan Hart, who teaches at University of Alberta, has written books of poetry, history and literary criticism and theory. He has held visiting appointments at Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne-Nouvelle, and elsewhere.

Fairbanks Gallery is free and open to the public Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays from 8 a.m. to noon. The exhibit concludes Nov. 2.

Image cutlines (from last year’s OSU Graduating Seniors’ Art Exhibit): 2010 Provost Award Winner, Morgan Williams, charcoal on canvas, “What Have You Been Waiting For?”

The OSU Graduating Seniors’ Art Exhibit reception will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31 in Fairbanks Gallery. During the event, awards for the exhibit, and scholarships for the upcoming year, will be announced.

Twenty-seven graduating art students will participate in this year’s exhibit. During the reception, President Edward Ray will present the President’s Award for Excellence in Art. Sabah Randhawa will present the Provost’s Purchase Award, and Larry Rodgers, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, will present the CLA Dean’s Purchase Award.

Senior of Distinction certificates will be presented to outstanding seniors in the fields of Fine Art, Graphic Design, and Art History.

Scholarship awards will be announced for freshmen, transfers and for returning students. These awards are selected through a competitive portfolio review.

Fairbanks Gallery is open to the public Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and from 8 a.m.–noon on Friday. The exhibition runs May 31–June 10. The public is welcome to all events.

For more information: Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009.

Danica Jones, Love Me Not, Serigraph

Cascade Print Exchange V, an exhibit of prints from artists around the world, opens May 2 in Fairbanks Gallery. A reception for the artists will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 3 in Fairbanks Gallery.

The Cascade Print Exchange, now in its fifth year, offers an opportunity for artists, including student artists, to interchange ideas and art with other artists throughout the global community. This year’s exhibit features 143 artists with works submitted from twenty-two states and six countries. Because of their multiplicity, prints are often traded from artist to artist. The exchange fosters a communication of ideas as well as a chance to form a connection with artists who have never met before.

Each artist submitted their work in editions of fifteen identical prints. The prints were created in the areas of intaglio, lithography, relief, serigraph or any combination of those media. In exchange, each artist will receive a portfolio of thirteen randomly selected prints for their own collection, a catalogue with images of all submitted prints, and their work is included on the Exchange website.

Amanda Sause, Untitled, Relief Linocut

Cascade Print Exchange V is organized by the Department of Art at Oregon State University under the direction of printmaker and faculty member Yuji Hiratsuka. His students are involved in the organization of the exchange, and many participate as artists as well. This exhibit is made possible by the generous support of Joyce Dickerson.

There will be a reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3. The gallery and reception are free and open to the public. Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday–Thursday, 8am-5pm, and Fridays from 8am-Noon. The exhibit concludes on May 24.

For more information: Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009 or drussell@oregonstate.edu
Or see the website at http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

Type/Life is a participatory installation involving the shifting meaning of language. The artists have expressed dualities of modern life in pairs of words printed on large floating balloons, in a dreamscape for interaction and reflection. Visitors can contribute by drawing their own lettering on blank balloons.

These artists ask you to get physical with language. The designers’ instructions to visitors say, “Walk through the forest of balloons, passing a typographic border on the floor. Shift your perspective. Consider your own lexicon of dualities. You may want to draw them on your own balloon and let it become part of the work. We invite you to wonder, reflect, engage and contribute.”

Nancy Froehlich is a photographer and graphic designer. She teaches graphic design at OSU. She recently completed her second stint in Vandh, a small village near Bhuj, India, teaching design basics to native craftswomen.

Nadra Moritz a graphic designer, lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her cultural complexity — Algerian-American-French, Indonesian, Austrian and Dutch, and her interests have lead her to collaborations with clients that span the geographic and creative world.

Zvezdana Stojmirovic teaches graphic design at MICA in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and is always on the lookout for ways to return to Belgrade, her hometown, as often as possible. Designing for Participatory Culture, her forthcoming book, co-authored with Helen Armstrong, is due out Fall 2011.

Azin Valy is a partner in I-Beam Design, an architecture firm in New York City. In September of 2010, I-Beam’s Pallet House, a humanitarian housing project, was featured in A Garden Party to Make a Difference, an exhibition in London hosted by the Prince of Wales.

For more information: Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009 or drussell@oregonstate.edu
Or see http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

Rachel Warkentin, Cate, 14” x 11’’, oil and egg tempera on panel, 2009

3Rach(a)els, an exhibit of painting, performance and video by artists Rachel Hines, Racheael Huffman, and Rachel Warkentin, opens Nov. 8 in Fairbanks Hall. A reception for Rachel Hines will be held from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., on Monday, Nov. 8 in Fairbanks Gallery, and a reception for Rachel Warkentin will be held from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., on Monday, Nov. 29 in Fairbanks Gallery.

3Rach(a)els is an exhibition curated by Julie Green, Associate Professor of Art at Oregon State University.  Meeting these three women within a years’ time, Green was struck by common threads. Each of these artists creates interdisciplinary, thought-provoking work that may require viewer participation to complete. Each explores themes of relationships and duration. Each are emerging artists now in their mid-twenties. Each has a remarkably generous spirit, in both actions and art.

Rachel Hines is an interdisciplinary artist working with themes revolving around absence, community, and intimacy. The work takes shape in performances, actions, objects, paintings and drawings. Ms. Hines studied at Pratt Institute, NY where she received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art with an emphasis in Art and Design Education. While at Oregon State University she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with a minor in Art History. Hines has shown extensively throughout the U.S. including recent exhibitions at Electric Celluloid Film Festival, MI; NutureArt, NY; and the Patchogue Biennial, NY. Her work has also been shown internationally. Recently she performed at 98weeks, Beirut and has screened her videos at Tina B. Prague Contemporary Art Festival. Hines is currently the Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Rachael Huffman thinks of experience as one continuous drawing.  She creates interactive work that encourages the transfer of image and information. Upon entering Rachael Huffman’s Kansas studio, Julie Green saw the work, 3 Wall Sun Drawing, a room-size piece of paper with faint pencil lines. For months, Huffman traced the shape of afternoon sunlight as it came thru the small high window.  For Green, it was a perfect Kansas project, full of understated beauty and the sublime.  Rachael Huffman received a MFA from University of Kansas, Lawrence, and a BFA from from Columbus College of Art & Design, Ohio. Most recently Huffman collaborated with her younger brother Andrew in Space’n'Digestion, at the Chop Chop Gallery in Columbus, Ohio.  Rachael Huffman currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

Rachel Hines, Extension, video installation, 6’h x 16’w.

Rachel Warkentin paints figments within varied levels of connection to reality. Within those parameters she probes relationships between connection and separation, struggle and surrender, image and self. “Ideas contradict each other, sometimes within one painting, and this mirrors my own thought process,” says Warkentin. “I rarely find myself aligning with the center in argument, but frequently find myself cheering on both sides. Sometimes opposites have more in common with each other than they do with the middle.” Warkentin received a MFA from Claremont Graduate University and a BFA from Oregon State University. She was awarded significant fellowships at both institutions.  Warkentin has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in LA and Italy.

For more information: Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009 or drussell@oregonstate.edu
Or see http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

Untitled, mixed media collage, 99 x 98 inches, 2010

Degree of Beauty, an exhibit of paper and debris constructions by New York artist Jeesoo Lee, opens Oct. 11 in Fairbanks Hall. A reception for the artist will be held from noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 13 in Fairbanks Gallery.

Jeesoo Lee has a fearless attitude towards the making of art. She bases her work on psychological states of being and through the physicality of her materials, namely trash, debris and paper.

“Trash by definition is unwanted by some yet beautiful to others.  More essentially, I see a different degree of beauty within the context of the environment where trash lives, letting it simply be,” says Lee.  “There is such a mixture of freedom and emotions when it is liberated from its isolation and legacy.  It loses its center of gravity and becomes a part of the abstract dynamics and organic nature of the whole.”

Lee seeks to convey the tension between traditional notions of abstract painting and the expanded palette of contemporary practice. The deconstruction and construction of her imagery is synonymous for the search for enlightenment and reason.

The gallery and reception are free and open to the public. Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays from 8 a.m. to noon. The exhibit concludes on Nov. 2.

For more information: Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009 or drussell@oregonstate.edu or see http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

Faculty art on display now at Fairbanks (contributed photo)

This exhibit demonstrates a dynamic diversity of styles and approaches to the making of art.

Sandy Brooke, Julie Green, Shelley Jordon and Douglas Russell show work in a variety of approaches and in the various media of oil, acrylic, and mixed media paintings.

Kay Campbell’s work, Perceptions, deals with interaction with the audience.

Graphic designer Christine Gallagher contributes several pieces that address of lettering, design, and conceptual concepts. Andrea Marks’ type diptych, Type Specimen, is reminiscent of the framed & pinned butterfly collections of the 18th century.  Nancy Froehlich has a number of ceramic works that involve typography in their design. Nathan Langner’s, “Drip Brew,” is a study of package design, and Paul Mazzucca’s, This, That and the Other Thing (Chapter 1) is a crossover graphic design/fine art installation of inked lithographic plates.

Yuji Hiratsuka is one of the northwest’s prized printmakers, and his Flower Heads, Gallaphant and Jungle Gem an intaglio, relief, and Chine collé prints reveals his colorist talent in a rare reduction intaglio process.

Shelley Jordon’s displays a new short video Dreaming/Drowning, her newest exploration in this field after her work, Family History won the “Silver Coyote, Critic’s Choice Award” at the Gold Coyote Super Short Film Festival in Marylhurst in May of 2009.

John Maul’s Genesis series, of five encaustic wall sculptures, typifies his broad-range experimental use of material, in this case encaustic and foam core, and once again includes the smell of sweet beeswax.

Andrew Myers’ moves from larger than life charcoal drawings to an intimate series of monotype prints this year.

Fairbanks Gallery is located in Fairbanks Hall, at the corner of Jefferson Way and College Drive on the OSU campus.  Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Hours on Friday may vary.  Due to reduced staffing in the summer months, unexpected closures may sometimes occur. For more information please visit our website at http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery.

The exhibit ends after the closing reception on Oct. 6.

For more information:  Douglas Russell at drussell@oregonstate.edu

Shawn Bitters, Devil’s Backbone, 2005, Detail, Screenprint on paper, dimensions variable

In Leach, Shawn Bitters investigates a sense of place and a connection and disconnection to land. In this installation Bitters has created an installation of 28 columns, made of screenprints on paper, which will fill Fairbanks Gallery to dramatically alter the interaction of the viewer and their perception of space.

Bitters explains that, “Using a monotype silkscreen process I printed a variety of neutral tones and textures that approximate a stone surface and respond to the colors of the gallery. My intention in relating the colors of the columns with the gallery was to both push the illusional quality of the paper formations, and to heighten the relationship between the work and the space. I wished to create the impression that the work is absorbing it’s surroundings. I have been inserting natural forms into human made spaces to replicate the spatial lessons that I first learned from my interactions with nature. This interplay between natural and architectural forms is exemplified in this installation by the natural forms taking on the coloration of the gallery as minerals will stain and be stained by the their surroundings.“

With this installation the artwork literally becomes a filter through which the gallery space is viewed.

Openings in the columns also provide the viewer with the opportunity to leave the walkway and walk around to see the work from the back. “From this vantage point the perspectival illusion does not occur,” says Bitters, “and the viewer encounters the material nature of the columns, which present their own shifting illusion from stone to paper to stone.”

Originally from Orem, Utah, Shawn Bitters received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and his BFA from Brigham Young University in 2002. His shows include the International Print Center of New York and Dieu Donné Papermill both in New York City, The Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, in Kansas City, the Providence Art Club, Providence, Rhode Island, and Temple University, Rome. He has upcoming shows at the Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence Kansas, and the Haydon Art Center, Lincoln Nebraska. He was recently an artist-in-residence at the Council of Danish Artist Residency on Hirsholm Island, Denmark and will be an artist-in-residence at the Frans Masereel Centrum in Kasterlee, Belguim in 2009. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas

Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be a morning coffee and reception for the artist at 9 a.m. on April 5 in the gallery.  The gallery and reception are free and open to the public. The exhibit concludes on April 27.

For more information see http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery or contact Douglas Russell (541) 737-5009, drussell@oregonstate.edu

Burton’s obsession with decorating envelopes and postcards started around 1985. At first they were vessels for correspondence, but occasionally they also acted as surrogates for sketchbook pages and also became explorations of technique, color and form. Burton soon found them increasingly fascinating because they dovetailed with his interests in topographies, systems, and the complexities those elements create in both art and life.

Fred Burton is a professor at the Memphis College of Art where he has taught since 1987. His paintings, drawings and woodcuts have been exhibited in Paris, London, New York City, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, and Orlando. Burton has held residencies at the Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, Long Island; the Michael Karolyi Foundation, Vence, France; Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic; the Tyron Guthrie Center in County Monaghan, Ireland; the Millay Colony for the Arts, Steepletop, Austerliz, New York; the Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois; the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, New York and the Morris Graves Foundation, Loleta, California.

Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, and Friday, 8 a.m. to noon.

Stephen Hayes, Those Lives, That Light, 2008, Oil on canvas on panel, 60” x 120” diptych

Hayes focuses on painting images of land, and made his first paintings outdoors in the face of nature more than 25 years ago. He works to fill his paintings with more than a simple depiction of a place, or of a particular light at a certain time of day.

“When I have succeeded in making paintings that resonate and take on a life of their own,” says the artist, “I have been able to meld an inner ‘weather’ with an outer vision. This work is sometimes unabashedly beautiful and imbued with emotion. I am convinced that there still is room in painting for beauty to play a key role, and for emotion to serve the painter positively.”

Hayes was born and raised in Washington D.C. where his earliest memory of an interest in art is of a drawing he made with silver crayons of John Glenn and his “Rocket Ship” in the 1960s He was about six.

Hayes, received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1980, having focused on drawing and specifically on drawing the human form. His studies took him as far as a full dissection of the cadaver via the University Medical School, culminating in a thesis on portraiture.

Immediately following graduate school, Hayes moved to the Middle East for nearly four years where he was overwhelmed by the awesome beauty of the Cypriot landscape. It was there that his interest in the land as a vehicle for expression of human condition began. His travels and work in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain and Cyprus planted a seed that is still bearing fruit in his work today.

Stephen Hayes, Caldera, 2008, Oil on canvas on panel, 60” x 120” diptych

In 1984 Hayes moved first back to Washington for a brief stint at the Phillips Collection as one of their Museum Assistants, and then within six months decided to go somewhere unknown. He headed west and settled in Portland, where he currently lives. He continues through his painting and print work, to translate, viscerally, the physical and emotional experience of places of nature.

In the roughly 20 years that Hayes has spent working and teaching in Portland he has participated in scores of exhibitions and produced dozens of one-man shows of his paintings, prints and drawings. His work is well represented in numerous private, public and corporate collections throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Japan and South America.

Fairbanks Gallery is open Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a reception for the artists, with a brief artist’s talk at noon Jan. 13. The gallery and reception are free and open to the public. Support for this exhibit has been provided by Art Work Fine Art Services. The exhibit concludes Feb. 3.

For more information: Douglas Russell 541-737-5009 or drussell@oregonstate.edu or visit http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

~ Doug Russell

Stephen Hayes, The Bean Field, 2008, Oil on canvas on panel, 60” x 120” diptych

Her body of work, Circles, draws inspiration from repetitive mark making, biological forms, and plant life. The exhibit is a formal exploration of shape and pattern.  Cells are of particular interest to her.

“I’m intrigued by their ability to reproduce, mutate and spread uncontrollably,” she said.

In her exhibit, Circles, Salvator explores cells and their beautiful forms, shapes, and patterns. At the same time, she said, “I find it fascinating how something so detrimental as cancer, can look so beautiful under a microscope. In our world, things often appear one way, but upon closer examination, are completely different.”

Circles, an exhibit of mixed-media intaglio, digital and watercolor images, opens May 4 in Fairbanks Hall.

Salvator borrows the patterns of these forms and or shapes from their current context and incorporates them into her own abstract language.  The most important image making process she employs is layering.

“Layering allows the work to slowly reveal it’s self to me,” she said. “I admire the beauty of transparency and rich textural surfaces I can create through this process.  I see a connection between my working process and the various levels of the human experience. Nothing can truly be understood through one experience (one layer) we must look at things over time and through various perspectives to truly understand their significance.”

Salvator’s interest in patterns and prolific growth extends to her gardening practice.

“Vines are a true love. These plants tend to have a life of their own, given the space, they will fill it, over take it, wrap around, creep and crawl up whatever gets in their path,” she said. “Seeds and flowers are fascinating due to their repetition; a sunflower head is a wonderful example.”

Salvator received her BFA (honors) in printmaking from Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois in 2000 and her MFA degree in printmaking from University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2004. She currently resides in Bloomsburg PA where she is an Assistant Professor of Printmaking and Two-Dimensional Design at Bloomsburg University.

In the last five years, Salvator’s work has been exhibited in over 30 exhibitions throughout North America and abroad. She recently had a solo show titled Ring Around The Rosie at SNAP Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta. Other recent exhibitions include 5th International Biennial of Miniature Art, Warszawa, Poland, 2008 Pacific States Biennial, Hilo HI, Printmaking Today: International Print Exhibition and Competition, Abruzzo, Italy and Stampa D’ Arte, Fondazione Bevilacquq La Masa, Venice.

Fairbanks Gallery is open weekdays, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The exhibit concludes on May 27.

For more information call 541-737-5009 or see http://oregonstate.edu/fairbanksgallery

You can also find out more about Salvator and her work by exploring her Web site at http://facstaff.bloomu.edu/msalvato/index.html

~ Douglas Russell