SJIMA Features Two Concurrent Exhibits

September 17 through November 28

— from Linda Marsaudon —

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art (SJIMA) is proud to present Hydrographs and For All We Know, concurrently running exhibitions by two innovative artists and printmakers, Nicole Pietrantoni and Dianne Kornberg. The exhibitions will open to the public on September 17, 2016 and will close on November 28, 2016.

Art as a Voice Events:

Nicole Pietrantoni – Fractured Landscapes, Fraught Aesthetics
A talk will be given on September 17 at 10 a.m. at San Juan Islands Museum of Art. Donations accepted. All proceeds go to San Juan Islands Museum of Art (SJIMA). A Gallery Talk and book signing to follow.

Dianne Kornberg – Crossing Borders
A talk will be given on October 13 at 7 p.m. at San Juan Islands Museum of Art.
Donations accepted. All proceeds go to SJIMA. A Gallery Talk and book signing to follow.

Lopez – A talk will be given at Lopez Library, October 7 at 7 pm. Donations accepted. All proceeds go to SJIMA. Book signing to follow.

Orcas – A talk will be given at Episcopal Parish Hall, 242 Main Street, October 14 at 7 pm. Donations accepted. All proceeds go to SJIMA. Book signing to follow.

Both women utilize printmaking to question what most take for granted, adding an artistic voice to forms otherwise expressed in purely scientific terms. In the words of Nicole Pietrantoni: “I am interested in our active role in constructing and idealizing landscape, questioning both the historical and contemporary complexities of representation.” She passionately explores the complex relationship between humans and nature through the medium of printmaking, creating works that are both powerfully cerebral and stunningly aesthetic.

Dianne Kornberg uses printmaking and other creative media to create photo-based, archival pigment prints that both honor and question limits to the creation of knowledge through the scientific methods. She juxtaposes poetry by her collaborator, Elizabeth Frost, alongside scientific language and conventions applied to specimen conservation and preservation. Their work serves to create alternate ways of understanding the “evidence” around us. The artist and the poet shift their focus in the “What is Left” series, as they explore the charged and disorienting experience of grief.

Nicole Pietrantoni is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she teaches printmaking and book arts. With degrees in Human and Organizational Development and Art History from Vanderbilt University, an MFA and MA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa, her accolades include: a Fulbright award for research in Iceland, an Artist Trust Fellowship, a Larry Sommers Printmaking Fellowship, the Manifest Prize, and a Leifur Eriksson Foundation Grant. She is President of SBD International, the largest professional organization dedicated to printmaking, book arts, and papermaking in North America. Her work has been featured in over 80 national and international exhibitions and collections around the world.

Dianne Kornberg has been exhibiting her artwork nationally and internationally for three decades. Museum collections include the Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, and more. Her work is featured in multiple book publications including Contemporary Art in the Northwest, 100 Artists of the West Coast, and Selected Work of the Portland Art Museum. She is a professor emerita at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, and resides on an island in the San Juans.

The exhibitions will open on September 17, 2016, concurrent with the ongoing installation in the Atrium Gallery, A River of Migration by Gu Xiong. For more information please visit www.sjima.org

The museum is open Friday through Monday 11 am to 5 pm, September 6 to November 28, 2016.

Admission to SJIMA – Members are free, $10 for non-members, 18 and younger are free. BONUS: every third Monday of each month is FREE.