(Above: Games, by Bill Rutherford; pen-and-ink montage)

Edited by Randi Bjornstad

A new show titled Seen: A Regional Figurative Exhibit is now on display at the Maude Kerns Art Center and features a wide variety of figurative work by 54 artists throughout the Willamette Valley.

Sue Gallego’s Constellation Paints Yellow Moon

The show includes both two- and three-dimensional creations, using mediums that range from painting and mixed-media to sculpture and photography, with the goal to highlight “the stories and bodies of those who have not historically been portrayed and probe the narrative qualities of the human figure.” The contents of this exhibit were chosen by jurist and artist Jeff Leake, a professor at Portland State University.

Here’s a small sampling of what visitors to Seen can expect to see:

  • Sue Gallego — A self-taught artist of Lakota ancestry, Gallego shows two of her acrylic paintings that are rich in symbolism and examine how her identity as an Indigenous woman has shaped her development as an artist,  including a feeling of “responsibility for depicting the emotional values and story of [her] people and culture.”
  • Rogene Mañas — Mañas’s mixed-media work called Erased Without a Trace depicts a Native American woman “whose dripping, red, raised hands and unwavering gaze demand recognition of the victims of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.”
  • Nancy Pobanz — Together Against All Odds presents a portrait of two strong lesbian women who have been together for 47 years, but who, despite multiple attempts and changing laws, could not legally marry until 2014.
  • Anja Wesik — Distorted and abstract figures in Wesik’s work focus on “interior experiences expressed through the outer shell of a human” via a large, untitled painting on paper. The figures portray a variety of human conditions, with themes that include “vulnerability, anxiety, depression, sensory disorders, trauma history, feelings of powerlessness, body dysmorphia, and a sense of not belonging.”

Seen: A Regional Figurative Exhibit at the Maude Kerns Art Center

When: Through March 21, 2025

Where: 1910 E. 15th Ave., Eugene (corner of 15th and Villard streets)

Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday when exhibits are on display; a virtual version of the exhibit can be seen on the gallery’s website at mkartcenter.org

Information: Telephone 541-345-1571 or online at mkartcenter.org

 

A sampler of the artwork on display through March 21, 2025, at the Maude Kerns Art Center