Here for The Now
Department of Art Visiting Faculty Exhibition:
Kevin Kripper, Briar Marsh Pine, Michael Rey, Gabie Strong, Claire Webb
February 28- March 16, 2025
510 Oak St, Eugene, OR 97401
Opening reception: Friday, February 28 from 4:30- 7:00 p.m.
4:30- 5:00 p.m.: Artist Walkthrough
5:00- 6:30 p.m.: Reception
6:30- 7:00 p.m.: Performance / Gabie Strong
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays from noon- 4:00 p.m. and by appointment
First Friday ArtWalk: Friday, March 7 from 5:30- 7:00 p.m.
6:00- 7:00 p.m.: Performance / Gabie Strong, Caspar Sonnet, Carousel
In an assembly of works, our Visiting Faculty in the Department of Art present their individual practices which are specific to medium and simultaneously expand the notion and condition of the contemporary within art practice. Their concerns reflect the complexity of a bordered yet global world that we find ourselves within and enlist the inner and the outer conditions of being human – our ability to question, imagine and rebuild within the webs of production and consumption.
Through these works, thought provoking questions emerge, capturing a sense of rebellion in relation to our current environment – whether in reference to the continual archived disasters associated with our climate, the rapidly changing relationship between humans and machine or a queering of landscape through re-registering tropes of masculinity. Further entanglements unfold within the unconscious and become embedded in forms, materials and processes that allow our imagination to meander between our current material culture and the broader vocabulary of elemental phenomena. These elements invite us to experience the tactility of the world around us as well as our tendency to ascribe meaning or find affinities in form even under the most abstract conditions.
Kevin Kripper (Buenos Aires, 1991) is a generative artist whose work explores a diverse range of topics, technologies, and aesthetics. Some of his works have been exhibited and awarded at both art and science festivals. Since 2012, Kevin has been creating innovative digital tools that empower experimental artists worldwide, leading to collaborations with technology companies like Cycling ’74 and Meta, iconic artists such as Aphex Twin, and global brands like H&M and Haus Laboratories. Currently based in Eugene, Oregon, Kevin serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art’s Art and Technology Program at the University of Oregon.
Briar Marsh Pine (they/he) is a cross-disciplinary artist who explores the contemporary landscape, queer identities, and visibility within their practice. Marsh Pine has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions nationally, including at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (WA), Charles Adams Studio Projects (TX), PAPA Projects (MN), and Gallery 263 (MA). They received their BA in Art and BA in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and their MFA in Studio Art from Washington State University, Pullman, WA.
Briar Marsh Pine is from Minneapolis, MN. They are currently the Visiting Assistant Professor in Photography at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR.
Michael Rey lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds a BFA from the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota and an MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Rey is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Painting and Drawing at the University of Oregon.
Rey’s practice centers around drawing, painting, and sculptural works. He initiates his process with automatic drawing, an open-ended method capturing fleeting thoughts and emotions. This instinctive approach yields objects that appear both familiar and elusive. Interested in art as a space of tension, Rey invites viewers to engage with his work on a psychological level, embracing the personal associations they bring to it. He explores the human inclination to rationalize the inexplicable, our tendency to ascribe meaning to abstract forms.
Rey’s shapes, by design, defy easy categorization, appearing organic and mechanical, primordial and futuristic simultaneously. These anthropomorphic forms are further enriched by engaging textures and layers, providing another point of entry for viewers.
Rey’s work has been exhibited internationally, with recent presentations at Arthur Donck Gallery in Brussels, SOUTHFIELD in Southfield, Michigan, Office Baroque in Brussels, and Zero in Milan. His work has also been featured in institutional exhibitions, including at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Malibu, the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, and the Neuer Kunstverein Wien in Vienna, among others.
Gabie Strong is a conceptual artist from Los Angeles, working in a post-studio practice, exploring spatial constructions of drone and decay as a means to improvise new arrangements of self-reflexive meaning. She works with materials, images, and sounds to explore related adjacencies that shape the present, including the collective sensation of solastalgia or the emotional distress associated with the effects of climate change.
Strong teaches undergraduate and graduate level art with an emphasis on foundations, expanded forms, and community art. Strong is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor in Core Studio. She has terminal degrees in Studio Art from UC Irvine and Architecture from SCI-Arc.
Gabie additionally works as a community arts organizer co-creating accessible spaces for community radio broadcasts, festivals, and exhibitions. She is the founder of Crystalline Morphologies community imprint dedicated to releasing unclassifiable and improvised recorded work by underrepresented women, trans and gender non-conforming artists whose contributions are often overlooked in the context of avant-garde music and art. She co-lead KCHUNG Radio from 2011-2019 to promote community accessible radio broadcasting, participated in the notorious 90’s Silverlake pirate radio station KBLT, and was an original organizer of riot grrrl LA from 1992-1994.
Her work has been presented by EPOCH Gallery, The Tapeworm, LAMOA DS#3 at Commonwealth & Council, LAND AND SEA OAKLAND+BAMPFA, The UCLA Hammer Museum, MOCA, Current LA, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts, Knowledges at Mount Wilson Observatory, Sierra Nevada College, Pitzer College Art Galleries, University Art Gallery UC Irvine, LAXArt, Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair, Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Human Resources LA, SASSAS, LACE, High Desert Test Sites, LACMA, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and Jabberjaw.
Claire Webb, Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewelry & Metalsmithing, earned an MFA from The State University of New York at New Paltz in 2021. Her current research employs unexpected material manipulations and juxtapositions to examine human material cultures and their relationship to our most fundamental needs and desires. Tapping into a deep shared imagination littered with the elemental phenomena, shapes, and substances that have permeated our visual and tactile experience of the world for millennia, Claire’s work often utilizes or references stone, shell, wood, and earth, and contrasts order with randomness in enigmatic ways. Through her investigations, concrete reference and pure reverie are synthesized, exaggerated, undermined, or reinterpreted into evocative forms that create poetic and transporting moments. Claire has shown work with a number of institutions including Galerie Lewis in Quebec, New York City Jewelry Week, Baltimore Jewelry Center, Brooklyn Metal Works, Melton Gallery, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
