KS Wild and Rogue Riverkeeper invite you to join us for First Friday with landscape painter, Deb VanPoolen at the KS Wild and Rogue Riverkeeper office for the July First Friday Artwalk.
First Friday Artwalk
Friday, July 7th from 5pm - 7pm
562 A Street between 4th & 5th
Drinks and snacks are provided.
Artist Statement:
The works presented here represent a decade of traipsing the globe while making some art about the ideals of love, peace, and simple living in Earth’s fragile, profound ecosystems.
When the US military inflicted Shock and Awe on the people and land of Iraq in 2003, I looked for places in the world where cultures are more in harmony with the earth’s natural rhythms. I went to Ladakh, India (northern Himalaya, bordering China and Pakistan), and Guatemala. In both of those places, I enjoyed meeting lots of happy people living closely together and lightly on the land. This show has artwork depicting my new friends in Ladakh and Guatemala lovingly creating a simple meal in a small outdoor kitchen for several people.
Three paintings depict scenes from the West Bank of Palestine, a sister hotspot of biodiversity. In one picture Mazin Qumsiyeh is elated to find evidence of diversity as he sees a rare shrew in a trap which he had set the night before. Another painting is a demonstration of generous Palestinian hospitality as a man sets a large table of food. In another scene, a woman pleads.
Two chalk pastel pieces focus on Chelsea Manning (aka Wikileaks Whistleblower). I began each of these pieces while documenting Chelsea Manning’s court-martial trial from the front row of the attendees’ seating area. One drawing is Chelsea’s portrait. The other drawing depicts Chelsea Manning and her defense team of two military attorneys and one civilian attorney.
In the past eight years, I resettled in the Pacific Northwest (first living in Southern Oregon in 1991) to promote the conservation of our Cascade-Klamath-Siskiyou biodiversity. With the generous support of organizations such as KS Wild, I have made six large paintings focusing on themes of the abundant biodiversity present here, such as the many types of fish in the Klamath River, the resplendent butterfly diversity, and the plants of the Siskiyou mountain range. The Siskiyou Mountain range is the true engine feeding the complex ecosystems of this whole bioregion.
Next painting and poster you ask? Bees of Oregon and the Wildflowers They Love!
Bio:
Deb VanPoolen has been a landscape painter for thirty years, exhibiting her work in Washington DC, Oregon, Montana, Michigan, and the West Bank of Palestine. Deb initially became a dedicated artist in the early 90’s and she could focus on the beauty of nature. Deb’s recent series of large paintings integrate science and art. They feature the globally significant biodiversity present in this region where the Cascade, Siskiyou, and Klamath mountains converge.. Deb has used this artwork to make prints, posters, cards, and puzzles that pleasurably educate about our local ecology and the fact that our local Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was designated to protect the hotspot of biodiversity here Deb grew up in various midwestern cities, all around the wonderful waters of Lake Michigan. She was introduced to life in the Pacific Northwest when she spent her final semester of college at a program on the Green Springs mountain east of Ashland. She continued to thrive by living in wilderness-rich, mountain-based communities in Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon throughout her adult life. Deb’s passion for the outdoors led to work as a wilderness therapy field guide in Montana’s backcountry and a canoe guide in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. She also served as Ladakh Coordinator for the International Society of Ecology and Culture and as Director of the Biodiversity Arts Outdoor School in Southern Oregon. Deb’s passion for truth and justice led her to document Chelsea Manning’s court-martial (with courtroom sketches each day of the trial) and brought her three times to Palestine to make murals, paintings, and drawings depicting the natural flora and fauna of that hotspot of biodiversity.