Anna Fidler and Katy Stone, contemporary artists of the Pacific Northwest, will be presenting their art at Clark College’s in-person gallery showing, “Of a Setting Sun,” on March 11, from 6 – 8 p.m. This is the Archer Gallery’s first in-person exhibit since 2020.
Fidler and Stone’s art has been on display at Clark since Jan. 3, and will continue to be shown until March 11. You can make an appointment to visit the gallery with Michelle Ramin, the gallery’s art coordinator and director.
At the gallery’s finale in-person event, the COVID-19 safety protocols require you to wear masks, social distance and complete a health screening beforehand. The gallery currently allows 75% capacity according to the guidelines, enough room for 90 attendees.
Fidler and Stone’s work has been featured at Clark College before. “Of a Setting Sun exhibit shows how they work together. The show feels fluid and intentional. Their work really compliments each other,” Ramin explained.
“I wanted this show to be about building captivating worlds. Drawing inspiration from formal design elements, both Fidler and Stone make work based on sets of rules they create – before eventually giving way to initiate knowledge and psychic information.”
Fidler currently teaches studio art at Oregon State University. She has had independent exhibitions at the Portland Art Museum, the Boise Art Museum, Johansson Projects in Oakland, as well as a variety of other venues.
Fidler’s contemporary style focuses on beginning with a pencil grid, followed by painting symbols and geometrical patterns, and then inking on calligraphy mattes to her piece. She uses the pencil graph as her guide.
On what connects Fidler to her work, “I see shapes as passageways, tools for seeing differently. I explore the energy of this language. Symmetry and asymmetry. Collapse and build. Control and ground. Crumple and unfold.”
Stone’s art has made appearances in- and outside of the United States and shown in solo and in-group exhibitions. Some of the major cities her work has appeared in include New York, Vienna, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles.
Boise Art Museum, Columbia University, the McNay Art Museum, Michigan State University, as well as Microsoft and Facebook have been home to Stone’s art.
Rather than starting out with a pencil grid like Fidler, Stone begins using the shapes as her guide. She uses a stacking technique for each dimension. The two-dimensional surface is the base, followed by the third layer.
“My work explores materiality, phenomena, and beauty. My pieces capture a kind of monumentality, and at the same time, a feeling of transience. The recurring natural forms and forces I evoke are allusions of elemental power and symbols of transformation,” Stone says.
To schedule a slot for the event, visit the Archer Gallery website.
