In the Gallery May 7th – 29th, 2021
Livestream – First Friday & Winner Announcement
This show displays work by invited and juried artists, invited artists are typically more well-known or established artists that are invited by the juror/curator. Juried artists are artists who are selected out of applicants for the show!
Exhibition: “Beyond the Construct”
May 7 – 29, 2021
Columbia Center for the Arts and The Dalles Art Center collaborate to bring the ceramic exhibition Beyond the Construct to The Gorge!
Columbia Center for the Arts and The Dalles Art Center are excited to present: Beyond The Construct. Thanks to the lowered Covid restrictions CCA and The Dalles Art Center will be having a First Friday reception: CCAs from 5-7pm and TDAC`s from 6-8pm on Friday May 7th. Prize winner of the show announced at TDAC and was live-streamed at CCA.
CCA is excited to team up with The Dalles Art Center on our first of an ongoing collaborative Biennial exhibits, each focused on a different medium. The first of these biennials, Beyond the Construct, highlights ceramic work from around the Pacific Northwest. Beyond the Construct is an opportunity to showcase the expressive and functional capacities of clay. The exhibit showcases works by Aisha Harrison, Baba Wague, Dirk Staschke, Ivan Carmona, Joe Davis, Lisa Conway, Maya Vivas, PK Hoffman, and Stacy Jo Scott, Willie Little. In addition, 21 juried artists have been selected to exhibit two pieces of work each: one piece representing the functional aspect of their practice, and one piece representing the expressive side. All artists will be divided between each Center showing a total of 16 artists at both galleries.
The juror, Brett Binford, is an artist and entrepreneur residing in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-owner/co-founder of Mudshark Studios, Eutectic Gallery, Kept Goods, and Clay Street. For more information please visit: https://www.thedallesartcenter.org/beyond-the-construct
Artists
This show displays work by invited and juried artists. Invited artists are those typically more well-known or they are established artists invited by the juror/curator.
Juried artists are artists who are selected out of applicants for the show.

Maya Vivas

Aisha Harrison

Joe Davis

Willie Little
Little is a Black multimedia artist and author. His visual narratives document a fading part of rural southern life while also tackling topics of racism and Black Lives Matter, Social Justice, and the childhood memories of growing up on a tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina. His memoir, In the Sticks, documents his years growing up as a poor, Black and gay child in the rural south. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area and Portland, Oregon. Little is an artist whose genius incorporates sculpture, painting, sound installations, re-constructed architecture, re-cycled memorabilia, and real-life stories. Willie pours out his soul for all to see as he relives growing up during a time of radical change. The common thread in all the work he creates is his examination of the manifestations of physical and societal decay in American culture.

Babe Wague

PK Hoffman; no website…

Dirk Staschke

Lisa Conway

Ivan Carmona
As a boy, I learned about Modernism through magazines and TV documentaries. It was there that I was introduced to the work of Isamu Noguchi and Alexander Calder, and began to recognize their forms in the natural world around me. The mountains and forests of Puerto Rico became sculptural constructions and swaying mobiles in my mind, and through my own visual language, I hope to communicate these intimate moments in a manner accessible to a larger audience. A shape, word, texture, or color can activate potent memories, and this sense of nostalgia is key to a reading of my work. The sculptures are abstracted, they aren’t one-to-one representations. Instead, each emotional memory is passed through the sieve of Modernism, creating connections between my remembrances and recollections of the past and the timeline of art history.
Looking back at a particular moment, I might remember a specific shape, color, or feeling. Through the years, these memories take on a life of their own. They expand and contract, shapes soften and blur, and colors push through to become more vibrant. By working with clay, a product of nature, I am able to make the immaterial physical. The unifying effect of flat, rich color helps to amplify the presence of even the smallest object, and serves to highlight its curves, angles, and planes. Each of my works pulls the past forward into a new body for the present to see. By creating these physical manifestations, I can remember, reflect upon, and share my histories with the world.
