San Juan Islands Museum of Art announces fall exhibits

||| FROM BARBARA MARRETT for SJI MUSEUM OF ART |||

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art’s Fall Exhibits pay tribute to the world above and below with three distinct exhibits in the Museum’s three galleries, September 26 – December 1, www.SJIMA.org

Kelp! Reverberations – Atrium Gallery 
Josie Iselin, Betsy Peabody, Ken Pearce, Jonathan Kawchuk
Kelp Reverberations will ignite visitors’ senses, immersing them in the vibrantly complex world of a bull kelp forest to learn and appreciate its wonder. This exhibition is a creative collaboration between a group of visionary artists and scientists steeped in the ecology and beauty of the kelp forest.

Showcased in the glass atrium gallery of the SJIMA, the installation will feature a maze of deep blue and turquoise cyanotype banners, created by artist and author Josie Iselin, using sunlight to imprint images of bull kelp and other understory seaweeds from the ocean forest. This sea of cyanotypes in the upper spaces of the atrium will invite visitors into a spatialized soundscape of the underwater world of kelp through an innovative soundframe system built by sound designer Ken Pearce in collaboration with Canadian composer and sound artist Jonathan Kawchuk. Sculptures made from locally foraged bull kelp by Puget Sound artist, Betsy Peabody, will complement the sound and banner scape in the atrium.

Mappings and data of kelp forests collected by the Samish Indian Nation over time will be featured on the wall of the atrium to provide a baseline understanding of the presence and decline of bull kelp in the San Juan Islands. Kelp! Reverberations is sponsored by Above/Below, the Puget Sound Restoration Fund, and Washington Sea
Grant.

All is a Circle within Me – Nichols Gallery
Emily McIlroy
The works in this exhibition showcase the eternal interconnectedness of existence through two radically different modes of representation—one figurative and organic, the other abstract and geometric. Both modalities take the circle as their central theme, a universal symbol used across many cultures and spiritual traditions to embody
wholeness, unity, and timelessness.

Emily’s work, Blessings to the Seven Directions, consists of six geometric works structured around a Celtic infinity knot. It abstractly represents both the temporal plane of life in which time is chronological and the eternal plane in which time and space are boundless.

The figurative work, River of Their Passing, alludes to an unbroken circle of time represented by an overlapping and interconnected line of caribou. It images an existence in which there is no division between past, present, and future, and no separation between the world of the living and the world beyond.

In creating these pieces, McIlroy embraces a worldview in which all beings and phenomena are profoundly and elegantly bound together in relationship. Emily’s works are done either in ink and collage on paper, or pastel, colored pencil, and acrylic on gessoed paper.

Complex Simplicity – North Gallery
Jan Hoy
Jan Hoy creates abstract sculptural forms of striking simplicity and austere elegance, finding the perfect balance between positive and negative space. Her unadorned shapes are, in the artist’s words, “a three-dimensional answer to a question. The concept and construction are arrived at through a prolonged contemplation of space and structure.

“Several of my forms have taken 2-3 years of mulling, envisioning, and sketching to find the answer. My favorite forms are a single shape that has nothing extra, no adornment, no secondary forms, no distracting color or surface pattern. My work embodies form in movement.”

The silvery skies and greens and browns of the Pacific Northwest landscape have influenced Hoy’s aesthetic sensibility. Her chosen material is clay with an iron-oxide finish; however, she also works in steel and bronze.

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art
540 Spring Street
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
(360) 370-5050
Exhibits Open: Fridays – Mondays, 11 am – 5 pm (Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon)
See the Museum’s website for the events hosted as part of this installation. sjima.org