Art + Design

Past Department of Art + Design Exhibitions and Lectures

Aidan Lancaster: Being and Becoming
MFA Thesis Exhibit, on View May 27—June 13, 2025

Opening Events, Tuesday, May 27:
4 to 5 p.m., Artist Talk, Randall Hall, Room 117
5 to 7 p.m., Reception in the Sarah Spurgeon Gallery (Randall Hall, Room 141)

Lancaster’s photographs are a raw and intimate analysis of their gender, creating tensions between societal expectations of gendered presentations and their lived reality. Vulnerable moments are depicted using a variety of coded gestures and symbols to represent the space between the dichotomies of masculine and feminine. Through self-portraiture, still lifes, and tableaus, Lancaster strives to work collectively with the viewer towards a more open and accepting understanding of gender identities.

 Image caption: Aidan Lancaster, Untitled, 2025, Archival pigment print, 22 in. x 15 in.

Past, Now, Future: Native American Prints from the
Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA) Collection

The CWU Sarah Spurgeon Gallery and Gallery One Visual Arts Center will present a joint exhibit of prints from the CSIA permanent collection

On View February 20 through March 22

Opening Events, Thursday, February 20:

Lecture by Michael Holloman (Colville Confederated Tribes)
Artistic Agency: The Vision and Legacy of Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts
Associate Professor, Washington State University
4:00 to 5:00 p.m., Student Union and Recreation Center Theatre, Room 210

Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

On view February 20 through March 29

March First Friday Reception at Gallery One Visual Arts Center:
Friday, March 7, 5-7 p.m., 408 N. Pearl Street

Gallery One Hours: Tuesday through Friday 11 a.m.- 5 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. -4 p.m.; Sunday 12-4 p.m.; Closed Mondays

Interweavings: Photography and Sculpture by Jeanne K. Simmons
Exhibit on View: January 16—February 8, 2025

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 16, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

Jeanne K. Simmons is an environmental artist based in Port Townsend, Washington. Her work expresses reverence for the natural world, and a deeply held belief that humans are part of its complex and beautiful fabric. The exhibit features photographs of figures integrated into the landscape, as well as sculptures containing foraged, natural materials.

Jeanne K. Simmons, Phoenix from the Flame (for Sinead), Photography, 2023

FALL 2024

Lehuauakea: I Nā Kiʻekiʻe Hou | To New Heights
Exhibit on View: October 3—November 2, 2024

Opening Events, Thursday, October 3:
Artist Talk, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., Randall Hall, Room 117
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

I Nā Kiʻekiʻe Hou | To New Heights features works grounded in the revival of traditional Native Hawaiian barkcloth, or kapa, a non-woven textile made from the beaten bark of the paper mulberry tree. As a member of the younger generation of lifelong kapa-makers, Lehuauakea's creative practice is informed by this intergenerational, place-based knowledge, passed on to them by their elders and mentors.

While their work is rooted in traditional customs with histories going back hundreds and even thousands of years, they also envision the practice of contemporary kapa-making evolving into new forms that tell new stories. As a result, this exhibition contains a wide variety of techniques, materials, and forms that blur the line between traditional and contemporary. These pieces seek to reimagine the limits of this material and its role as a mode of storytelling through fiber, pigment, and pattern.

Portrait of Lehuauakea. Image courtesy of Leah Rose.

Lehuauakea, Kaʻena’s Kite. 2023. 25 inches x 25 inches. Earth pigments, bamboo, hibiscus cordage, shell, kapa.

Artist Talk by MIKEWINDY
Tuesday, October 29, 4:00-5:00 p.m., Randall Hall, Room 117

MIKEWINDY (otherwise known as Mike Mitchell) is the Art Education Professor/Coordinator at Tennessee State University, an HBCU in Nashville, Tennessee. He earned a degree from the University of Memphis in 2004, where he investigated making art using a wide array of media, including video, sound, painting, printmaking, ceramics, metal casting, stop-motion animation, collage, and performance. He has continued those investigations over the past twenty years and exhibited his work in public spaces all over the world, including galleries, trains, street corners, and outside the grocery store where he has been shopping for forty years.

Art Historian Talk by Asiel Sepúlveda
The Plantation's Smokescreens: Art and Vision in Nineteenth Century Cuba

Thursday, November 7, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Virtual on Zoom and live streaming in Randall Hall, Room 117

This talk explores how lithographic artists crafted new ways of seeing the Cuban landscape during the nineteenth-century. The conversation focuses on the portrayal of smokestacks and steam clouds emerging from sugar plantations. Using close readings of lithographs and text written by sugar planters, Sepúlveda reveals how the Caribbean plantation became a sight of artistic admiration, where one could witness the aesthetics of industrial modernity. Lastly, the talk illustrates how the creation of a “plantation aesthetic” has been used to mask the violence of slavery and its legacy.

Dr. Asiel Sepúlveda, Assistant Professor of Art History, Babson College

 
Frédéric Mialhe, The Plain of Güines, 1842, hand-colored lithograph 

2024 Department of Art + Design Faculty Exhibition
Exhibit on View: November 14—December 14, 2024

Opening Events, Thursday, November 14:
Faculty Artist Talk, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., Randall Hall, Room 117
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

SPRING 2024

Juried Undergraduate Student Art + Design Exhibition
Exhibit on View April 11—May 4, 2024

Opening Events, Thursday, April 11:
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141
Awards will be announced beginning at 6:00 p.m.

Anemoia: MFA Thesis Exhibition by Matthew Potter and Charlie Tadlock
Exhibit on View May 14—June 1, 2024

Opening Events, Tuesday, May 14:
Artist Talk, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., Randall Hall, Room 117
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

The CWU Sarah Spurgeon Gallery will host Anemoia, a Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition by Matthew Potter and Charlie Tadlock.

Matthew Potter’s large-scale works on paper investigate memory through the viewpoint of abstraction. The surfaces develop a history within themselves as a result of repeated and densely-layered applications of various media. Memory itself is imbued in the marks.

Charlie Tadlock’s lens-based media and installation works focus on the road through the rural American West. The regional identity of rugged independence has created a culture that centers around transience, and that positions prosperity and people as temporary.

Matthew Potter, Petrichor, 2023, Acrylic, atomized charcoal, colored pencil, concrete, and spray paint on paper, 35 in. x 48 in.

Charlie Tadlock, Off I-90 in Ranchester, WY, 2023, Archival pigment print, 16 in. x 20 in.

WINTER 2024

Rob McKirdie: Mechanical Gestures

Exhibit on View January 11—February 3, 2024

Opening Events, Thursday, January 11:
Artist Talk, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., Randall Hall, Room 117
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

(Gallery Closed: Jan. 15 in observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day)

Mechanical Gestures is a body of work by Rob McKirdie that explores our relationship to machines as a metaphor for modern existence. At the same time, it investigates the effect of technology, mechanization, and industrial innovation on consumer culture. McKirdie uses materials that have been scavenged from scrap yards, junk heaps, and dumpsters. As a tactile, visceral experience, the work invites the viewer to explore the gamut of emotions, from reverence to chaotic humor, through direct engagement with the work. McKirdie received an MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and is currently a tenured professor at Spokane Falls Community College.

Mother Tongue: Rafael Soldi and Victor Yañez-Lazcano
Exhibit on View February 15—March 9, 2024

Opening Events, Thursday, February 15:
Artist Talk, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., SURC Theatre, Room 210
Reception, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

(Gallery Closed: Feb. 19 in observation of Presidents' Day)

Rafael Soldi and Victor Yañez-Lazcano's photography, video, and installation works consider ideas of masculinity, gender, intimacy, violence, and the power of language. The exhibit contemplates their shared interest in these themes and how they are reflected through the unique lens of the immigrant experience, as assimilation impacts traditional customs and upbringing. Soldi is a Peruvian-born artist and independent curator based in Seattle. Yañez-Lazcano is a third-generation Mexican American and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Art + Art History + Design.

Rafael Soldi, mouth to mouth, 2023, Ink on paper

Victor Yañez-Lazcano, Poder, 2018, Neon, 20 in. x 24 in.

FALL 2023

INTERSTATE: Where I-90 meets I-82

November 2—December 2, 2023

(Gallery Closed: Nov. 10 in observation of Veterans Day, and Nov. 22-26, Thanksgiving Break)

INTERSTATE is a biennial juried exhibition organized by the CWU Department of Art + Design. The exhibit subtitle, “where I-90 meets I-82,” locates the exhibition in Ellensburg, Washington, and suggests the flow and exchange of artwork across geographic distances and boundaries. The juror for the 2023 INTERSTATE exhibit is Stefano Catalani, the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, Washington.

The list of participating artists includes: Daniel Atyim, Sarah Barnett, Raymond Bonavida, Ruth Bravetti, Jeanne Ciravolo, Paige Clark, Nicholas D’Angelo, Mat Duncan, Erik Fremstad, Olivia Fry, Justin Gibbens, Noble Golden, Erin Robinson Grant, Nena Howell, Louis Hurlbut, Steve Jensen, Bella Kim, Riley Kizziar, Anne Magratten, Katherine McDowell, Dorothy McGuinness, Richard Metzgar, Gordon Miller, Naoko Morisawa, Elizabeth Morisette, Lindsey Myers, Cory Peeke, Cozette Phillips, Haley Prestifilippo, Robert Procter, Carl Richardson, John Richey, Kathy Ross, Lisa Sheets, Marcus Shriver, Jerry Slough, David Smith, Carlos Lee Sullivan, Sharon Swanson, Eric Thompson, John Tronsor, Ryan Wise, and Suze Woolf.

Carlos Lee Sullivan (class of 2019), Deflate!, Latex and acrylic paint on cloth, balloon, and mixed media, 48 in. x 31 in., 2021

Sarah Barnett, Cradle, Oil on canvas, 36 in. x 48 in., 2021

 Erik Fremstad, The Grizzly, Archival ink and watercolor on cold press, 47 in. x 35 in., 2020

FALL 2023

September 28—October 21, 2023

RYAN! Feddersen: SIGNAL TRACES

Opening Events, Thursday, September 28: 4-5 p.m., Artist Talk, SURC Theatre, Room 210; 5-7 p.m., Reception in the Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

RYAN! Elizabeth Feddersen creates compelling site-specific installations and public artworks that invite people to consider their relationships to the environment, technology, society, and culture. Utilizing metaphor, historical research, traditional Plateau storytelling, and pop culture influences, paired with printmaking, sculpture, performance, and digital tools, Feddersen creates visual allegories that provide the public with opportunities for exploration, introspection, and epiphany. She is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, from the Okanogan and Arrow Lakes bands, and of mixed European descent.

Fall 2022

Opening Events, Thursday, September 29:

4:00-5:00 p.m., Panel discussion by SOIL Artists Erin Elyse Burns, Jia Jia, Philippe Hyojung Kim, Margie Livingston, and Tyna Ontko, in Randall Hall, Room 117

5:00-7:00 p.m., Reception in the Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

Featuring work by: Iole Alessandrini, Sophia Anderson, Nola Avienne, Colleen RJC Bratton, Chris Buening, Erin Elyse Burns, Jasmine Fetterman, Bradly Gunn, Ben Hirschkoff, Jia Jia, Claire Johnson, Philippe Hyojung Kim, Chloe King, May Kytonen, Margie Livingston, Kiki MacInnis, Quinn McNichol, Tyna Ontko, Forrest Perrine, Claire Scherzinger, Genevieve Tremblay, and Ellen Ziegler.

Department of Art + Design Faculty Exhibition

Opening Events, Thursday, November 3:

• 4:00-5:00 p.m., Faculty Artist Talk, Randall Hall, Room 117: Assistant Professor Justin Colt Beckman, Associate Professor Maya Chachava, and Assistant Professor Kyung Hee “Kate” Im, will give short presentations about their work
• 5:00-7:00 p.m. in the Spurgeon Gallery, Randall Hall, Room 141

(Gallery Closed, Nov 11. Veteran’s Day, and Nov. 23-27, Thanksgiving Break)

This biennial exhibit features recent artwork by twenty full and part-time faculty, emeritus faculty, and graduate teaching assistants.