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Mike E. Walsh

The Arts Center Exhibit(s):

• "Portals" Winter Show & Silent Auction, Winter 2011
• '9th Around Oregon Annual Exhibition,' October, 2011
• "Where Birds Dream" Winter Show and Silent Auction, Winter 2010

Artist Statement for "Portals" Winter Show & Silent Auction, Winter 2011:"

My mixed media assemblage/construction 'A Long Days Journey' (Egyptian Series), 2011, was inspired by my recent travels in the Middle East and Egypt: As well as a memory portal to my service in Vietnam in the 1960s.

     Title: A Long Days Journey, 2011
     Media: construction/assemblage
     Size: 10" x 10" x 5" (wall hung)

We are fascinated and repelled simultaneously by the endless loop of televised imagery and skimpy narration, oiled with the patina of exaggerated patriotism that begins with the dusty, desert-bred bogeyman, travels clean through the bloody wrath of the Old Testament, and ends with those prickly little tingles in the scalp, the moistened eyes, and the grand old flag: everyone declared a “hero” just for showing up: love of country as religious experience.

Artist Statement for “Catacomb” for "Where Birds Dream" Exhibit and Silent Auction, Winter 2010:"

'My bird house construction titled Catacomb, explores the intersection of myth and symbols. Contained as a cultural artifact in a Plexiglas vitrine, my narrative is conversant with mainstream contemporary issues. I have used the house construction in boxed assemblages and site-specific installations: not to represent houses per se but their roles in terms of temples for emotional, political and symbolic personal rituals. Catacomb embodies an entire realm of beginnings, endings and the private world of dream realization.'

'The birdhouse can be an image of safety and protection, to nothing more than a mere facade: representing a bird house with no entry point, I isolate the house with miniature snakes lurking nearby. This juxtaposition suggests vulnerability, instability and isolation: an exploration of humanistic issues, a revaluation of the personal, and experiential. '

Artist's Biography:

Education:

• BS   1965 Western Oregon State University, Monmouth, Oregon.
• PC   1966 Columbia University, New York, New York.
• BFA 1972 University of Oregon.

Recent  Solo Exhibitions (Exhibit record includes 80 solo exhibitions):

• Maude Kerns Art Center, Judging the Heart, site-specific installation, Eugene, Oregon
• Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA), The Declaration of Innocence Before the Tribunal, site-specific installation, Eugene, Oregon
• The Arts Center, Lesson Plan, site-specific installation, Corvallis, Oregon
• Jacobs Gallery, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, Australian Series: Fragile Circles, Eugene, Oregon
• Littman Gallery, Portland State University, Lest We Forget: A Dialogue on AIDS, site-specific installation, Portland, Oregon

Recent Group Exhibitions (Exhibit record includes 344 group exhibitions):

• Jacobs Gallery, Mayor’s Art Show, Eugene, Oregon
• The Arts Center, 7th, 8th, and 9th Around Oregon Annual, Corvallis, Oregon
• 8th and 10th International Shoebox Sculpture Invitational Exhibition, University of Hawaii Art Gallery, Honolulu, Hawaii

Recent Awards:

• Merit Award: The Fate of the Newspaper, Pittock Mansion Gallery, Portland, Oregon
• Merit Award: 7th Around Oregon Annual, The Arts Center, Corvallis, Oregon
• Commission Award: Works: Fragments of the Material Age, permanently installed in the Eugene, Public Library, Eugene, Oregon
• Project Grant: Creative Time, New York, New York
• Regional Initiative Grant: National Endowment for the Arts/Andy Warhol Foundation; and Artist Fellowship, Art Matters Inc. with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, New York, New York.

Selected Public Collections:

• Creative Time, New York, New York; Museum of Art and design, New York, New York
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
• Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi
• Koahsiung Museum of Art, Koahsiung, Republic of China
• Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
• Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, Salem, Oregon
• Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.

Visit Mike E. Walsh's website.