Catharine Clark Gallery

Catharine Clark Gallery announces "American Gothic," a collaborative exhibition of sculpture, mixed media, and video by Deborah Oropallo and Michael Goldin. On view May 25 – July 15, 2023 in the South Gallery and Media Room, the exhibition pays tribute to the life cycle of a working farm, and the impact of climate change on local and global ecologies. The title of the exhibition refers to an art style that emerged in the United States during the early 20th century. This style is characterized by a dark and foreboding atmosphere, often depicting rural settings as sites of isolation and the macabre. Grant Wood, the painter who popularized this style, created the iconic 1930 painting "American Gothic:" his painting portrays a stern-looking farmer and his daughter standing in front of a farmhouse with a distinctive Gothic-style window. Although Wood's intention was to pay tribute to the rural population of the Midwest and their political history, the painting is often misunderstood as a satirical comment on Midwesterners being out of touch with the modern world. Drawing upon the pathos and parody inherent in this juxtaposition, the showcased works combine the gravity of American Gothic with the humor of Looney Tunes, two genres that emerged in American popular culture during the early 1930s. Oropallo and Goldin crafted their sculptures using materials sourced from their farm in Northern California, including sheep's wool, trees, bones, buckets, and boots. The resulting sculptures are exquisitely crafted and possess a darkly absurdist quality, exploring the tensions between the farmer and the farmed, as well as predators and prey. Moreover, the exhibited works poignantly commemorate Milk Made, Oropallo and Goldin's working farm, which has faced increasing challenges due to drought conditions and climate change. In their own words, Oropallo and Goldin express the underlying sentiment behind "American Gothic:" "Our work in the exhibition stems from sadness and a sense of loss. We grappled with contradictions while creating the artwork, aiming to reflect this precarious moment in time while simultaneously celebrating the beauty of the incredible nature and environment we have been fortunate enough to experience on our farm." "In our work, fairy tales continue to serve as cautionary stories about the environment, industrialization, and threats to sustainability in our political climate. By reimagining stories that have captivated and frightened children for over 200 years, we approach our work as both humorous and elegiac—a tribute to the land, stewardship, and a reminder of the stakes involved in the ongoing climate crisis." Join us for an opening celebration on Saturday, May 27, 2023, from 3 – 5pm, with artists’ talks at 4pm. "American Gothic" is presented simultaneously with Jen Bervin’s "Source", which is on view in our North Gallery though June 10, 2023.

Catharine Clark Gallery announces the opening of "Jen Bervin: Source," the inaugural exhibition in its newly expanded 9,200 square-foot space. "Source" is the artist’s first West Coast survey and follows the acclaimed 2020 survey exhibition "Jen Bervin: Shift Rotate Reflect, Selected Works (1997 – 2020)," curated by Kendra Paitz, Director and Chief Curator of the University Galleries of Illinois State University, and monograph publication. Founding Director Catharine Clark writes: “Bervin’s remarkable solo survey exhibition at Illinois State University opened in 2020 at the height of Covid, and at a time when limited audiences were able to see it. In planning for the opening of our new space, we saw an important opportunity to bring this body of work to the West Coast, which our expanded space makes possible. We are especially proud to feature several of Bervin’s most important projects – including her monumental sculpture "River" (2006 – 2018) – and to offer our audiences the chance to engage with Bervin’s deeply researched and exquisitely crafted work. The artworks in the exhibition encompass installation, sculpture, bookmaking, video, and the range of Bervin’s practice is emblematic of the conceptual rigor and capaciousness that is a hallmark of the gallery and its artists.” Bervin approaches medium expansively: from silk biosensors inscribed with nanoscale poems, to installations in hand-sewn silver sequins that meander and flow across hundreds of feet, her work stems from a restless curiosity about how we observe the world around us. Poet Claudia Rankine writes that Bervin’s work “invites [us] into a search for the unknowable…The science is precise. The method is documented. The structure is informed by interrogated processes, but the experience of the encounter is beyond the stability of language.” Bervin asks us to reflect on those moments just outside our grasp and to imagine what’s possible in that space of ambiguity. Her work directs us away from easy answers or defined endpoints, but instead leads us back to that source anew. Bervin’s ambitious sculpture "River" (2006 – 2018) imagines an impossible vantage: the Mississippi River as if viewed from the core of the earth, its headwaters, alluvial path, and confluence in the delta stretching across 230 curvilinear feet of ceiling and wall. Rendered in hand-sewn silver sequins on mull – a material used to line the spines of books – "River" catches the natural light as it moves through space, evoking light glinting on water. Bervin’s sculpture inspires awe, fabricated at a scale of one inch to one mile; this twelve-year process took her as long to sew as it would to walk the actual river. Bervin describes the Mississippi as a “spine,” a metaphor that suggests this river’s relation to its life-giving support of a body, or an open book to be read. As an immersive installation, "River" evokes the Mississippi’s outsized place in the American imagination, especially as a gateway for westward expansion that is inextricably tied to Manifest Destiny and the violent displacement of Native peoples, as well as the river’s centrality in America’s growth through industrialization, a history that is inseparable from both slavery and environmental destruction. Bervin’s sculpture powerfully reminds us of these cycles of destruction and regeneration, pointing to how our collective histories, like geological time scales, are always in process and take time to understand.