Mack McFarland is an interdisciplinary artist and curator who makes his home in Portland, Oregon. He works in many mediums, with a particular focus on video and drawing. Characterized by humor, mysticism, chance, repetition, and the multi-sensory, his work invites the viewer to experience the intersection of the aesthetic and the cognitive. McFarland has been exhibited nationally and internationally; screening videos at Pixelodeon Festival at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, the La Enana Marron Film and Video Festival in Madrid, and at Cine Fantom in Moscow. McFarland has also created works for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts’ Time-Based Art Festival, and a three-month-long project for the Tacoma Art Museum, which Sheila Farr of the Seattle Times called “startling, nutty, and technologically relevant.” His future projects include a West Coast tour with Weird Fiction, the video band he help co-found, as well as a curatorial project at the Feldman Gallery. He is the recipient of the William H. Givler Thesis Award in Fine Arts, the winner of the Charles Voorhies Drawing Competition and received a Couture grant from the New American Art Union as part of the Video Gentlemen.

One of my students Chris Oshiro will be shooting a green screen film in the artist in residence studio over the next few days. If you see activity, please feel free to drop by and have a look.

Posted below are a few photo stills from Wednesday’s shoot.

South Waterfront/UO Artist in Residence Program
Professional Practices Lecture Series
The John Ross
3601 SW River Parkway
Portland, OR 97239

Jenene Nagy
Artist + curator
Wednesday May 12/2010
6:30 pm

Bio:
Jenene Nagy is a visual artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. She received her BFA from the University of Arizona in 1998 and her MFA from the University of Oregon in 2004. Nagy’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Portland Art Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Takt Kunstprojektraum in Berlin, and Dam Stuhltrager in NY, among others. Recent awards include an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission and a three-month residency at Raid Projects in Los Angeles. Along with a rigorous studio practice, Nagy is a full-time faculty member at Clark College and one half of the curatorial team TILT Export.
www.jenenenagy.com <http://www.jenenenagy.com>

University of Oregon MFA thesis exhibitions opening this Friday May 7 from 6-9 pm

Come see our Graduate Students work!

Disjecta
Noon – 5 p.m. Friday – Sunday through May 31
8371 N Interstate Avenue.

South Waterfront/UO Artist in Residence Program
Professional Practices Lecture Series
The John Ross
3601 SW River Parkway
Portland, OR 97239

Our first speaker will be presenting his work this week. Upcoming speakers are Jenene Nagy on May 12 and Mack McFarland on May 19.

Wednesday May 5/2010
6:30 pm
Cris Moss
Artist + Curator

Bio:
Cris Moss is a curator and multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon
Noted for his ongoing series (9+) of itinerant donut shop shows. He is now Adjunct Professor of Design, Electronic Media, and Gallery Director at Linfield College . He is also part of the Red Shoe Delivery Service collective. Most recently Moss curated the Portland 2010 Biennial staged at various venues throughout Portland, Oregon during March-May 2010.

Moss’s work explores the various layers of identity as mediated through culture by employing narratives both scripted and non-scripted. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including The Melbourne International Arts Festival, Australia, Nottdance, UK, Display Gallery in Prague, Maccarone Inc. in NYC, Swiss Institute – Contemporary Art, NYC, Elizabeth Leach Gallery Portland, Oregon, Whatcom Art Museum, Bellingham, WA, and Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT.

Please feel free to visit me at the Artist in Residence studio on Thursday afternoons between noon and 2 pm.

During the month of May University of Oregon  BFA students will be using the studio to work on various projects for their thesis exhibition which takes place during the month of June at the White Box Gallery located at 24 NW First Avenue.

Matt Nixon is in the process of creating an installation using the studio windows – the piece will be visible by peering through holes or pockets in the windows which will be collaged with images from 1930s/& 40’s newspaper clippings

Chris Oshiro will be building a set in the space to document dog owners with their pets and will be using green screen to document works in progress for his BFA exhibition

Liz Bayan will be workshopping various installation configurations using multiple broadcast monitors in preparation for her BFA exhibition.

copied from Current News, AAA Blogs , University of Oregon
http://aaa.uoregon.edu/news/index.cfm?mode=news&page=news&id=1064

Art professor Kartz Ucci is taking up residence in Portland for the spring term . . . and so is her artwork. As part of the new Portland 2010 biennial, Ucci’s video installation at the Alpern Gallery in northwest Portland will be on view from April 2 to 24. A reception for the artist happens Friday, April 9, from 6 to 9 p.m. The gallery is located at 2552 N.W. Vaughn St. in Portland. Hours are Fridays, noon to 5 p.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Across town, Ucci will serve as artist-in-residence at the John Ross Condominiums at South Waterfront throughout the spring term. She is also teaching two digital arts classes at the UO’s White Stag Block.

Portland 2010, a successor to the former Oregon Biennial, brings together 18 artists spread out among 6 different spaces between March and May. The event is organized by non-profit Disjecta and curated by Cris Moss, gallery director at Linfield College.

Ucci’s installation, “I Want to Be a Lighthouse Keeper,” is a close focused, high-resolution video recording of a 5 mm thick rod of blue neon that has been sped up to reveal the fluctuating luminosity of the neon gas. An amplified recording of the electrical hum of the neon transformer sweeps across the room from a 360 degree soundbar. Ucci describes the work as a distilled, constructed view of a horizon line, filled with potential yet empty. Its motion is that of particles of light and their magnetic oscillation at the frequency of the alternating electrical current, she said.

Originally conceived in 2008, she was unable to show the actual neon she’d had manufactured because a gallery’s space in Delaware was interrupted by columns. “Because I was unable to show the work as intended, I decided to shoot the neon as a video, and I liked how the camera was able to capture the fluctuations in light. It was a happy accident.”

Though some of the Portland 2010 exhibits are group shows, the curator selected an individual exhibition space for Ucci’s video and sound installation due to its minimal quality.

Ucci will also contribute to an event-capping group show of Portland 2010 artists at the UO’s White Box in the White Stag Building from April 6 to 17. Ucci said she plans to include a second piece that exploits the visual properties of custom neon. The White Box, 24 NW First Ave., is open Tuesdays to Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

I want to thank all who attended my presentation Wednesday evening. I had a great time and hope to see you in the future. My open studio hours are Thursdays from 4 to 6, but feel free to email me at chickman@uoregon.edu if that time doesn’t work for you.

Also, remember my print give away. I am putting three of my pictures in the windows of the AiR studio each week and the first three people who contact me, either by email or in person, can have a picture. You will need to come by the studio to see the pictures. That way you can identify which one you want. The first person gets their first choice, the second person their choice from the remaining two, etc. If you get one of the pictures, you will need to pick it up from me in person when the next set of pictures goes up the following week. Normally new pictures go up Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

Hummingbird from 12th floor of John Ross from Colin Ives on Vimeo.