Fibonacci Footprint
Ten Northwest artists explore Global Warming through paintings, sculpture, installation and video, each focusing on varying topics of climate concern: rising water, food systems, colonization, environmental pollution, and microplastics. The exhibition Fibonacci Footprint runs from February 9 through April 11 at Bellevue College Gallery Space this winter. The exhibit provides insight into the causes of global warming and what we can do to help heal the planet.
Fibonacci Footprint approaches this new reality through the lens of art. Artists can say what scientists can’t. They bring feeling to the facts, translating data into knowledge, which in turn empowers change. This exhibit unpacks the difficult data, each work the result of thoughtful research aligned with passionate feeling. Some works were built through ongoing dialogue between artists and biologists, geologists and psychologists, some done in active collaboration with these scientists.
Artists Featured-
Melinda Hurst Fry
Kite Arner
Holly Ballard Martz
Debbie Tupah
Amanda Manitach
Beverly Naidus
Cara Jaye
Lucia Enriquez
Mary Coss
Nichol Devoy
More about the artists-
Melinda Hurst Fry
Melinda Hurst Frye photographically celebrates the ecology of the Pacific Northwest region, with the goals of providing visual evidence of the cycles of the forest floor, bearing witness to the understory, and bridging the poetry of art with biological sciences. To intentionally slow down her own seeing, Hurst Frye often works with a flatbed scanner as a camera which also allows for space and time to connect with the ecology of her surroundings. Melinda lives with her family adjacent to an urban forest in Kenmore, Washington, and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery in Seattle, Washington.
Instagram: @mhurstfrye.photo
Website: mhurstfrye.com
Kite Arner
Kite Arner (they/them or she/her) is a Seattle based artist whose work centers on change, stillness, and transformation; exploring these through composed collections of foraged and found natural materials, bronze casting, wax and wood. Many of their current projects arise from putting natural objects through transformational processes. Kite has a deep appreciation for the beauty found in living nature and is particularly fascinated by the effects natural forces have on animals, plants, and the environment. They believe there is great breadth and commonality in the ways we as people relate to the natural world finding connection, beauty, and metaphor that allows us to share the
unutterable, the sacred. Apart from their own practice, Kite is a shop technician at Bellevue College in the sculpture and
three-dimensional design studio. And teaches Bronze Casting at Pratt Fine Arts.
Socials- @kitelikethebird
Website: https://www.kitearner.com/
Holly Ballard Martz
Holly Ballard Martz is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes conceptually based sculptures and installations. Through the transformation of familiar objects, she challenges societal norms and power structures while simultaneously encouraging viewers to question their perceptions. Known for her meticulously crafted work, Martz often addresses difficult or controversial subject matter under the guise of beautifully fabricated and embellished pieces. Martz has exhibited extensively and her work is held in many prominent collections, including the Gates Foundation, the City of Seattle, and the University of Washington. Her monumental installation danger of nostalgia in wallpaper form (in utero)has been exhibited in multiple museums and is on display at the Gates Foundation through December2023 as part of Designing Motherhood. She is the recipient of a McMillen Foundation Fellowship, an Artist Trust Grant for Artist Projects, a Seattle Office of Arts and Culture City Artist Grant, and she was a2022 Neddy Artist Award Finalist.
Website- hollyballardmartz.com
Debbie Tupah
Debbie is a Canadian artist who exhibits internationally. Informed by current issues and events, her work strives to reveal hot-spots and states of precariousness, expose our complicity, and challenge how we function as humans. In 2011 Tuepah received an honours BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU),prior to which she held a lengthly career in marketing. Awards of note include the 2011 ECU Chancellor’s Award for Academic Excellence and Outstanding Work, and with artist Roxanne Charles, their work Bearing Witness contributed to Surrey Art Gallery’s 2019 Canadian Museum Association Award in Indigenous Contemporary Art Education.
Socials- @debbie_tuepah
Website- debbietuepah.com
Amanda Manitach
Amanda Manitach is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator based in Seattle, WA. The homeschooled daughter of an evangelical minister, she grew up in Kansas and Texas where she spent interminable Sunday mornings drawing pictures on the backs of church bulletins, and eventually went on to earn a degree in literature from Oral Roberts University. Her visual art merges a love of drawing and language in large-scale works on paper and other media that utilize text as playground, producing messages at turns lyrical, mischievous, provocative. In addition to visual art, Manitach has worked extensively as an arts writer, with seven years as visual arts editor at CityArts Magazine. She has co-founded and co-directed multiple artist-run galleries in Seattle, and served as curator at Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery from 2013-2015. She is represented by Winston Wachter Fine Art in Seattle and New York.
Website- https://www.amandamanitach.com/
Beverly Naidus
Bio: Beverly Naidus has a multi-faceted creative practice that keeps responding to what is happening her life, her dreamtime, and the traumas impacting her community and the planet. Whether looking at the ecological crisis, transforming grief and despair, or exploring visions of the world we can create together, she has been committed to raising consciousness through her internationally recognized work. She loves to play with scavenged materials and to collaborate with others creating interactive interventions in the community. After decades of teaching art as a subversive activity, she has left neoliberal academic institutions to facilitate workshops as an independent and write a book about creative emergent strategies.
Socials- @utopias4all
Website- www.beverlynaidus.net
Cara Jaye
Born in Solana Beach California, Cara Jaye lives and works in Bellingham WA where she is Professor of Art at Western Washington University. She received her MFA from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and her BFA from Parsons School of Design in New York City. She studied printmaking at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France as part of her undergraduate education. Jaye is multi-faceted artist whose practice is rooted within drawing and expands into various techniques including encaustic painting, collage, conventional and alternative photographic processes, printmaking, and embroidery. She considers drawing her first and primary medium – she loves drawing for its immediacy and intimacy of marks placed directly on the page.
Jaye is interested in examining ideas of process, classification, reproduction, and perfection. Treading the line between the apparent and the ambiguous, the beautiful and grotesque, Jaye enjoys working with re-occurring dichotomies. Building work of a diverse nature, she crosses into various subjects and material concerns. Themes in the work move between notions of environmentalism, consumerism and the picturesque. She examines the intersectionality of femininity, portraiture, authorship, and identity, and finds subtle affinities between these interactions
Website- www.carajaye.com
Lucia Enriquez
The work of Lucia Enriquez is influenced by immigration, pre-colonial cultural studies, family history and the transformative effect of being in nature. Trained as a printmaker using traditional materials, she now includes digital painting and other applications that emulate particle interactions and wave forms to create images. Her work evokes journeys and the mysteries of nature and dream. Her work has been shown in galleries in Washington including COCA, Whatcom Museum of Art, the Museum of Northwest Art and in other galleries throughout the U.S.
Website: lucidartstudio.com
Mary Coss
Mary Coss is an interdisciplinary artist known for her monumental sculpture and multimedia installations. Born in Detroit and based in Seattle, Coss received her MFA from Syracuse University, Dept. of Experimental Studios. This hybrid sculpture/media program inspired a life-long commitment to create cross disciplinary socially conscious work. Coss’ extensive exhibition record spans galleries, museums and sculpture parks. Honors and recognition include awards, residencies, and grants such as NEA, Ford and Puffin Foundations, 4Culture, and Artist Trust. She has built international partnerships through exhibitions, residencies and cultural exchanges in Canada, Italy, Ireland, Guatemala, Stockholm, and Turkey. She is cofounder of METHOD Gallery.
Instagram- @marycoss_studio
Facebook- Mary Coss Artwork https://www.facebook.com/mary.coss.94/
Nichol Devoy
Nichol Devoy (he/him) works across diverse disciplines, from traditional media to generative digital and video installations. His self-taught journey began around 2006 in San Francisco with photography and illustration and further developed in 2012 when in Vancouver BC studied interactive arts and technology at Simon Fraser University with independent study in painting and darkroom arts. He currently works from his studio in Seattle and serves as director and curatorial lead for METHOD Gallery. From concept to material his practice is deeply inspired by social and environmental sustainability often being made from salvaged or recycled waste.
Socials- @icholino
Website: nicholdevoy.com
Von Coffin
Residency: October 23- November 17, 2023
Exhibition: November 28- January 18, 2023
Opening Reception: November 28, 4-7 PM
Von Coffin (b. 1983 Kirkland, WA) lives on the Coffin family farm in Redmond, Washington. They are trans, non-binary, and bipolar. Education includes MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University (2016) and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Galerie Dengyun in Shanghai and group exhibitions with Tops Gallery in Memphis, TN; Foster White Gallery in Seattle, WA; and Other Places Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA.
sacoffin.com website
Scott Trimble
Residency: April 22-May 22, 2023
Exhibition: June 15- Sept 22, 2023
W. Scott Trimble is a sculptor whose site responsive artworks and installations consider the intersections between art, architecture, and the participation of humanity within. He has largely been influenced by the central coast of California where he was born and the PNW where he has been working since receiving an MFA in sculpture at the University of Washington in 2003. Starting out in reductive techniques, leading to bronze casting, and fabricated steel sculpture, he has also delved into coin-operated kinetic works and most recently large site specific interactive wooden sculptures. He is most interested in alternative venues that engage the greater public on their own terms and where it is least expected. He is mostly interested in creating artworks that are accessible, interactive, lyrical, and facilitate exploration.
Recognized through awards and grants by the 4Culture, Seattle Arts & Culture, Artist Trust, and McMillan Foundation, he has many public and private art commissions found throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has extended his art practice through his participation in many reputable artist residencies such as Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Anderson Ranch, Lucas Artist Residency at Montalvo, Amazon, Sculpture Space, Jentel, and others.
Trimble prefers temporary venues that are more accessible to the greater public such as Bumbershoot Art & Music Festival, Wormfarm Institute Farm/Art Dtour, Hello Tunnel/Good-bye Viaduct, and so forth. He has also exhibited mostly in northwest galleries and sculpture parks that have included Greg Kucera Gallery, Swarm Gallery, Schneider Museum, Bellevue Arts Museum, Crawl Space Gallery, Method Gallery, 4 Culture Gallery, Olympic Sculpture Park, to name a few.
Bellevue College Faculty Exhibition – Feb 15 – April 7, 2023
2022
Mary Coss
Residency: Oct 4 – 15 & Nov 1 – 17, 2022
Sound the Siren Exhibition: Nov 17 – Dec 30
I explore current topics and memory with a critical eye. I challenge our expectations and social norms in order to analyze their effects on our present state and to consider our future impact. Sound the Siren is artwork examining ideas of social justice. There are tendrils to civil rights, free speech, feminist ideology and a host of other topics. The work has a societal basis and generates conversation about history, empowerment, empathy and integrity.
I will host students both during my residency working stage and during the exhibition period to discuss the ideas behind the work and the methods of fabrication. I will also facilitate voter registration by providing interested students with a QR code, so that they can register to vote online. I welcome collaboration with faculty and am happy to tailor the conversations to related subject matter in the curriculum.
BIO
Mary Coss is an interdisciplinary artist known for her haunting installations that explore the human condition. Born in Detroit and based in Seattle, Coss received her MFA from Syracuse University, Dept. of Experimental Studios. Materials vary and range from cast bronze, fabric and drawing to neon light and sound. Her use of common imagery is often abstracted or put into a new context to create new perspectives to consider. People’s stories, current news cycles and existential questions inspire the artwork.
Recognized through awards and grants by the NEA, Ford and Puffin Foundations, 4Culture, Seattle Arts & Culture and Artist Trust, her numerous public art commissions are found throughout the Northwest.Coss exhibits nationally and in northwest galleries, museums and sculpture parks that include Museum of Northwest Art, Bainbridge and San Juan Museum of Art, The Wing and Webster Sculpture Park. Public Debt to the Suffragette received “Art to Change the World: Inspiring Social Justice” Special Recognition Award from the ACLU at ArtPrize. Critically acclaimed Layers of the Hijab, a three-year social engagement project, received NEA funding. Coss’ Public Art includes commissions and socially engaged practices, project Lead Artist and authorship of Art Plans.
Coss has built international partnerships that include exhibitions, residencies and cultural exchanges in Stockholm, Canada, Ireland, Turkey and Guatemala. Residencies include Willapa Bay, Playa, James Washington Foundation, Cornish Incubator, and Cill Rialaig. She is cofounder of METHOD Gallery, CASA: a rape crisis center that flourishes after 30 years, and Borealis Light Festival.
Sarah Fetterman (residency)- March 15 – June 15
Sarah Fetterman is an artist working in performative sculpture. She utilizes the fluid, organic movement of dancers, either juxtaposing it with the awkward creaking movement of wood and metal sculptures, or having the dancer’s flour-covered body track its movement on large sheets of black tar paper.
Sarah’s interest in durational work gives her art a dream-like quality punctuated with precarious and yet graceful moments. Choreographing her installations and dancers as one, Sarah emphasizes the essence of the work as a total organism.
Since coming to Seattle, she has embraced the interdisciplinary and tech-savvy art culture – collaborating with Code Empathy, a software coding company. Sarah’s work was exhibited at Soil Gallery, Franconia Sculpture Park, Shunpike’s Storefronts, Collective Vision’s Gallery, Hybrid Space, and the Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA). She assists world-renowned sculptor John Grade with installation in venues including the Smithsonian.
Francesca Lohmann, Slumber Party – Jan 15 – March 15
I am working to build a language that operates through gesture, imprint, support, mutual formation, through things and processes as they manifest in the world. Everything in this language exists in multiple, as a series, an open edition. There is no singular definitive object.
I’m curious about boundaries and where boundaries become confused.
About the distinction between dead and alive.
I’m looking for certain instances of weight; emotional density.
Like a fairy tale, or a joke, a good meal, a rock.
BIO
Francesca Lohmann (b. 1986 in San Francisco) was raised in the foothills of Northern California, and now lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. Trained in Printmaking, her practice continues to be concerned with material in time, repetitions, affinities, and points of contact. Recent solo exhibitions include “Variants” at Ditch Projects in Eugene, OR; “Taffy X” at the Coffin Farm in Redmond, WA; “Sets” at Veronica in Seattle, WA; “Butter Flavor with Yellow” at Seattle Freezer, and Subspontaneous, a collaboration with Rob Rhee at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.
2021
Sung I Chun, Light, Water, Space – Nov 1 – Jan 15, 2022
2020
Chris Oliver, The Pool Zone and Other Zones – Jan 9 – March 6
2019
Carlos Palomares (residency) – Nov 3 – Nov 8
Tiffany Midge Reading and Event – Nov 7
Changing Bodies – Sept 19 – Nov 1
Bellevue College Juried Student Exhibition 2019 – Opening June 19 – Aug 7
Juror – Greg Robinson, Chief Curator, Bainbridge Island Art Museum
Guest Curator Carrie Dedon Exhibition – April 9 – June 9
Yehaw’ – May 28 – June 12
Writer in Residence – Laura Da’
Closing Reception June 12. 4 – 9 p.m. Musical guests “Them Savages,” Readings by writers from “An Indigenous Art Zine”
MOSA- Museum of Special Art
Last Updated April 18, 2024