The Art of Narrative
Featuring: Nancy Morgan Barnes, Erin McGee Ferrell, Jennifer Goldfinger, Daniel Minter, Michael Stasiuk, and Judy Woodborne
Narrative art is, quite simply, art that tells a story. Ranging from Bronze Age cave drawings to comic strips, narrative art’s history is long and, well, “storied”…
This exhibition brings together six artists making exciting and imaginative work within the narrative genre. Working in a variety of two-and-three-dimensional media, all manage to capture rich, complex narratives, in unique and highly engaging ways through subject matters ranging from myth (often with irreverent reframing), to celebratory expressions of cultural identity, to purely fictitious childhood scenes. The result is thought-provoking, visually stunning, and refreshingly fun.
Nancy Morgan Barnes: I am a narrative realist. Often the concept of the narrative has led us to make-believe worlds of the ideal and to daydreaming of better times.
Through the composition of her works, one finds explicitly rendered chaos and order… things are not as they appear.
Daniel Minter: Daniel Minter is an American artist known for his work in the mediums of painting and assemblage. His overall body of work often deals with themes of displacement and diaspora, ordinary/extraordinary blackness; spirituality in the Afro-Atlantic world; and the (re)creation of meanings of home.
Jennifer Goldfinger: My two forms of creative expression share a similar theme. Isolation, contemplation and a narrative that captures that. The interaction between found antique images and my own photography bring forward modern design balanced with nostalgic subject matter. The accessibility and playfulness reflect my work in children’s literature, and this imagined context unfolds into a story of the viewer’s own.
Michael Stasiuk: I am an animator of objects. I work figuratively giving a new sense of context to otherwise commonplace or discarded items. The items I choose evoke a nostalgia and a sense of memory. My process is creating inventive but simple joinery between materials, mostly wood, metal and fiber.
Erin McGee Ferrell: The work in this series is a tribute to the illustrators of Golden Press’s Coppelia, Tales of the Ballet. I was walking through Portland Ballet Studios and stumbled upon the children’s book. Picking it up I was struck by the vivid colors and the quality of the drawings. My favorite illustration was the depiction of the Ballet Coppelia. I created a series of four large oil paintings. I also created two small paintings as studies of color and composition. This series was an educational study and tribute to these illustrators, career artists who navigated the complexity of a difficult career and who left a lasting legacy.
Judy Woodborne: My work is inspired by creation mythologies of diverse cultures combined with an interest in natural science and the nature of matter. Hayden Proud (Curator at Iziko Museum, Cape Town, S.A) has described my work as "symbolist," implying that the creative process I employ comprises many layers.
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