This content was published: January 17, 2013. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Garrick Imatani: After the Fall
Cascade Paragon Arts Gallery
Garrick Imatani, Tom Sawyer #2, 4th of July, Hannibal, Missouri, graphite on paper
- Dates: January 17 – February 21, 2013
- Artist talk: Thursday, January 17, 3-3:50pm, MAHB 104 Auditorium
- Opening reception: Thursday, January 17, 4-6pm
- Location: Cascade Gallery, Terrell Hall Room 102
- Gallery hours: 9am-5pm, Monday – Friday
Garrick Imatani is a self-professed bad historian who conflates personal narrative, artistic legacy, archival records, tourism, and national pastimes into equal forms of documented performance and material culture. He takes and makes images, objects, and actions that range from graphite documents, cyanotypes, and documentary video to figurative sculpture, tours, and collaborative public events.
In recent works, Garrick Imatani conjures the spirit of historian, archaeologist or sightseer in order to mirror narratives of nation building, the exotic or nostalgic past. Official and unofficial voices emanate throughout the work, mimicking how personal memories are defined by and carved out of the collective or artifact. Visual acts of repetition, negative/positive inversions, and many hidden layers of material process and labor allude to pattern creation/misrecognition, altered scripts, and public records boxed up and stored in the dark.
Some of the images used in the exhibition are from Imatani’s participation in the National Fence Painting Contest in Hannibal, Missouri – the hometown of Mark Twain. During this 4th of July weekend event, 10-13 year old contestants, dressed as the literary character Tom Sawyer, race barefoot down a spectator-lined street to whitewash a free-standing fence.
Garrick Imatani is the recipient of several grants and awards, including from the Oregon Arts Commission, Maine Arts Commission, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Solo and collaborative projects have been exhibited at the University of Oregon’s White Box, Ditch Projects (Springfield, OR), Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle), Portland Community College, and Washington State University at Vancouver. Other participating venues include the Queens Museum, Art in General, Asian American Arts Centre (NYC), Contemporary Artists Centre (North Adams, MA), and the Institute for Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. He holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and resides in Portland, Oregon where he is the Studio Head of Foundations and Assistant Professor of Art at Lewis & Clark College.
For more information about the artist and images of selected works, go to: garrickimatani.com