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Now in its third year, “Portfolio has established itself as an opportunity that young Peninsula artists eagerly look forward to each spring,” said PAFAC director Jake Seniuk. “Coming on the heels of Strait Art, PAFAC’s adult ‘portfolio’ exhibition, it rounds out the picture of the Peninsula art scene with a glimpse of the future.”
Curated by PAFAC education director Barbara Slavik, the show features a grouping of works by each of nineteen of the region’s most promising student artists. Slavik worked closely with the art teachers in the participating high schools — Jenny Steelquist, Port Angeles H.S., Martha Rudersdorf, Sequim H.S., Wendy Bennett, Quillayute Valley H.S., and Lucy Chambers, Crescent H.S. — who nominated candidates for her to review and select for the project.
“The aim of the show is to instill a sense of professionalism in ambitious students and to stimulate the production of a coherent portfolio that will demonstrate their talents and hopefully launch them along future art paths,” said Seniuk. In weekly sessions from February up to the show’s opening Slavik mentored students in collaboration with their teachers, helping the young artists develop their work and prepare for an effective display. The show includes a mix of seniors and underclassman, several of whom were part of last year’s exhibition.
“I’ve had a chance to work with some formidable talents in this group,” said Slavik. “It’s so rewarding to see the evolution of these young artists over several years as well as over the winter and spring this year. The level of expression and originality that pours from these kids is amazing. My biggest goal is to help them try to find their own voice, which I think is the great challenge of art and is also intrinsic in their development as aware human beings.”
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While her critiques are aimed at “seeing deeper” and understanding their work in larger cultural and art historical contexts, Slavik aims to develop the students’ design skills and command over materials to enable them to realize their intent. The exhibition is comprised of paintings, drawings, photography, collage, sculpture and mixed media works that express a host of contemporary qualities.
Claire Cordeiro (Sequim), whose powerful oversize pastel portraits set the bar high in last year’s show, explores new methods to serve her facility for figuration. The facial topography of Bob is built up with planes formed into tonal fields with thousands of parallel ink strokes, giving a fractured cubist appearance while retaining the mechanistic legibility of photographic realism.
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Torrey Jakubcin (Port Angeles) presses the linear quality of text into visual design while adding meaning to his composition by forming “word pictures” in the manner of “concrete poetry.” In one, the silhouette of a man huddled under an umbrella is comprised of text figments, a kind of screen crawl spouting weatherman jargon.
Fusing fashion with sculpture Kelly Hennessey (Port Angeles) has created a striking dress ensemble from copper and steel foils. Cutting, bending and joining the metallic sheeting with tailorly precision she has created a layered frock, complete with matching stole, purse and vampy shoes to form a sort of haute couture armor reminiscent of the styles of the 1920s.
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A quest for style is at the heart of Hannah Spaulding’s (Port Angeles) Photoshop manipulations of the camera muggings of friends and strangers. Using the computer’s elastic controls she applies make-up and virtual cosmetic surgery to bend her subjects to her own Goth interpretation of allure. Laura Williams (Crescent), on the other hand, uses the camera to take diaristic note of small everyday encounters that have caught her eye — the drip of a faucet or a seaweed heart on the beach.
Illia Chavez (Quillayute Valley) draws emotional density from the velvet surfaces of crushed pastel that makes a schoolroom scene seem as mythic as her imaginary portrait of an ancient Egyptian goddess. Angela Dunn’s (Port Angeles) canvases, too, have a darkling quality of the inner eye. Capturing a play of light and shadow reminiscent of the airless perspectives of Edward Hopper she treads in a dreamscape of long shadows and suspended time.
Gabriel Hatton (Sequim) revels in Surrealism in highly experimental paintings and sculpture. In his ambitious Wonder Horse, he transforms a found plastic carousel horse into the dream icon of a winged Pegasus mounted on a tree trunk column, which has been bucked into stumps and reassembled as stacked sections separated by wedged buzz saw blades.
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Romance and fantasy saturate the book arts of Nicole Harrison (Port Angeles) and Katherine Napiontek (Port Angeles). Harrison’s soap opera boy-girl fantasies are inspired by Romance novel covers, while Napiontek’s elaborate colophons are descended from the perfumed flowerings of Aubrey Beardsley and Art Nouveau.
A grimmer tone empowers the demons in Frankie Maybury’s (Sequim) hallucinogenic portraits and in Cortland Waldron’s (Port Angeles) political and historical allegories. Maybury’s sophisticated handling of pattern and psychology are reminiscent of the metaphysical visual poetry of William Blake. Waldron’s scene of a nursery, where a nightmarish scene is shared by Uncle Sam and the severed head of Saddam Hussein, is packed with enough Freudian innuendo and pop symbolism to intrigue the conspiracy theorist who resides somewhere in us all.
“Portfolio is not meant to be a competition,” said Slavik, “but a vehicle for expression and communication. To that end we award each participating artist equally with a $50 gift certificate for art supplies at Olympic Stationers, to keep up their creative momentum after the show is over.”
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Final preparation for professional display was done by Slavik and the folks at Karon’s Frame Center, who for a third year contributed matting and glazing for more than three dozen art works. Olympic Stationers, Port Angeles, contributed additional art supplies.
Also featured are the works of Mylece Burling (Sequim), Crystal Grant (Sequim), Kira Hendrickson (Sequim), Jared Kilmer (Crescent), Erin Pallai (Sequim), Kayla Smith (Port Angeles), and Tess Williams (Crescent).