PRICHARD ART GALLERY EXHIBITION       

October 17 - November 15, 2003

Sense of Place in the Pacific Northwest

Opening Reception: Friday, October 17, 2003, 5pm to 8pm

The University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery will feature the exhibition Sense of Place in the Pacific Northwest.  This exhibition, curated by the Prichard Art Gallery staff, is in conjunction with the UI Humanities Fellows ongoing project, Sense of Place. The exhibition responds to issues of chronology, place, and socio-political climates specific to the peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The issues being explored have defined or are defining the lives of resident groups of people and the individuals within them.

               The artists invited to participate in the exhibition are Roger Shimomura, Lanny DeVuono, Scott Fife, Anjel Luna, and Greg Pfarr.  They all use their unique vision and interpretations of place in the content of their work. The range in style and subject matter is complex from Japanese American painter Roger Shimomura's graphic narratives that reference his experiences as a child in an Idaho internment camp in the 1940's to Lanny DeVuono's enveloping landscape paintings.  Of his silk-screen suite "Yellow No Same" Shimomura says "This series of prints explores America's inability to distinguish between Japanese and Japanese American people. This is what brought about the internment camps of World War II. In the twelve images, different Japanese American people stand behind the barbed wire of the internment camps, while traditional Japanese figures such as costumed actors stand in front of the wire barrier."  Moscow native Scott Fife¹s classically styled cardboard busts explore the turn of the 20th century labor unrest and unionization related conflicts in the mining and extraction industry in Idaho.  The portrait busts allude to the struggle, determination, political turmoil and anxiety of the time. In his figurative sculptures, Anjel Luna examines labor stereotypes from the perspective of Hispanic migrant workers and their struggles with self esteem and respect. Greg Pfarr¹s etchings, which grow out of his "personal aesthetic exploration of the mountainous regions of the Pacific Northwest", give the viewer a sense of the physical power and awe-inspiring beauty of the region.               

               The work in the exhibition celebrates place, both for its grandeur and its antithesis. It suggests through its many and varied objects and forms the many and varied ways that a place can bring joy, sorrow, serenity and isolation to an individual or group.

• Anjel Luna will give a public lecture  Wednesday October 15 at 6 PM,  Commons Horizon Room
• Greg Pfarr will give a public lecture Thursday, October 16, 7 pm at the Prichard Art Gallery.
• Roger Shimomura will give a public lecture on Thurs, Oct. 30 at 7:00 pm in Renfrew Rm. 112, UI campus.
• Scott Fife will be on campus in mid-November TBA

The University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery hours are Monday – Saturday from 10 am to 8 pm. The gallery, an outreach facility of the University of Idaho, is located at 414/416 S. Main Street in downtown Moscow.  Admission is free. For additional information please contact the gallery at (208) 885-3586.