Artists slated for mosaic show
Lincoln City’s Chessman Gallery is presenting a mosaic of artists, brought together to create one multidimensional exhibit, “Tradition, Transgression, Transformation: Contemporary Mosaic Art from the Pacific Northwest,” starting this Friday Dec. 11.
At 4 pm on Saturday, Dec. 12, Gallery Director Krista Eddy will join mosaic artists Joanne Daschel and Lynn Adamo for a virtual tour of the exhibit on the Lincoln City Cultural Center Facebook page.
The exhibit showcases artists from Oregon and Washington who are members of the Northwest Mosaic Art Alliance, part of a global movement to mine the possibilities of this ancient tradition for truly modern ends. These artists explore the endless expressive possibilities of stone, glass and tile as well as metal, found objects and recycled and reclaimed materials of all sorts — using methods and tools that date back to the earliest epochs of human civilization.
Mark Brody
A Portland native, Brody has been a working artist since graduating from Lewis & Clark College with degrees in art and education. He discovered his passion for building and working with tile when he built a house in New Mexico 20 years ago. His finished works are located in libraries, hospitals and community centers. His latest project is a how-to mosaic book featuring projects for the garden.
Todd Campbell
A writer by profession, Campbell spent his adult life using words to make sense of the world until discovering that the materials and tools of a mosaic artist are also powerful ways to explore ideas. After nearly a decade, he has come to believe that piecing together glass, stone, pottery, porcelain and metal to create a mosaic is both a metaphor for and a reflection of how the human brain works. Since 2013, his work has appeared in exhibits across the Pacific Northwest.
Joanne Daschel
Based in Lincoln City, Daschel creates vivid, textural mosaics with stained glass, stone and the original mosaic glass of Venice known as smalti. This intensely colored material is hand-cut with traditional tools then placed directly on to the panel with no grout, for a dimensional effect. Her work is guided and inspired by the natural world of Oregon’s Pacific Coast, though less focused on the dramatic seascapes, instead looking closely at overlooked landscapes and quiet botanical vignettes.
Richard Davis
After earning a degree in sculpture from Bard College, Davis spent many years in the restaurant business. In 1998, he volunteered to help install mosaics on the front of the Craft Center Building in New Zealand, and has been making mosaics ever since. Many of his pieces are inspired by and incorporate found or recycled objects and tiles carted back in suitcases from faraway lands. Since 2016, his work has appeared in exhibits around the world.
Scott Fitzwater
Fitzwater has been creating mosaics since retiring from a career as a software engineer in 2008, working mostly in slate sourced from salvaged roofing tile and harvested from quarries in California. He is drawn to slate because he can cut and break it into thicknesses and lengths that allow him to fully explore organic, abstract and geometric designs. Largely self-taught, he has exhibited in North America and Europe and has won several awards.
Kelley Knickerbocker
Knickerbocker has been a full-time artist since 2006, when she founded Rivenworks Mosaics in Seattle and began designing, fabricating and installing mosaic artwork for public, commercial, residential and gallery environments. Her ruggedly dimensional mosaic artworks are widely collected and regularly exhibited in the US and abroad. In 2015, she received the Innovation in Contemporary Mosaic award from the American Society of Mosaic Artists.
Jennifer Kuhns
A professional artist for nearly three decades, Kuhns has been working in mosaic since 2001. Using primarily stained glass, her work ranges from strikingly dimensional figurative and landscape imagery to decorative, stylized installations. Her public art and community projects reflect her strong commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and galleries throughout the country.
Karen Rycheck
Like many artists, Rycheck discovered her passion for art at a very young age, when clay and drawing classes at the local art association led to a formal education in the arts. After graduating with a BFA in sculpture, she was part of a team that mosaicked thousands of square feet of the 10-story Brown Shoe Company factory in St. Louis. Since moving to Oregon in 2004, she has worked on mosaic installations for the Oregon Zoo in Portland, and created public mosaics in Ashland, Grants Pass, McMinnville, Medford and Talent.
Lynn Adamo
Adamo is drawn to things in decay, like peeling paint, chipping plaster, decomposing brick and rust, and the textures and patterns of age and decay on old walls. The place where the natural creeps over the built environment is where she continually finds inspiration. Her passion is creating work that is rooted in classical mosaic grammar, extrapolated to a contemporary place.
Tradition, Transgression, Transformation” will be on display through Monday, Jan. 4. The Chessman Gallery is located inside the Lincoln City Cultural Center at 540 NE Hwy. 101. For more information, go to lincolncity-culturalcenter.org or call 541-994-9994.