Exhibition: Where the Waters Come Together

Greg Archuleta is an artist and educator. He teaches about the culture and history of the Tribes of Western Oregon, including ethnobotany, carving, cedar hat making, Native art design, and basketry. Many of his cedar and basalt carvings have been on display in the northwest, linked to Willamette Falls and the Columbia and Clackamas Rivers. Archuleta notes that his work focuses on place and often depicts a Native perspective on historical events. These include the destruction of tribal community after the Federal government’s termination of the Grand Ronde tribes in 1954, but also serve to document the cultural reclamation of community, identity and cultural arts.

Lehuauakea is a māhū mixed-Native Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist and kapa maker from Pāpaʻikou on Moku O Keawe, the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. Through a range of craft-based media, their art addresses cultural and biological ecologies, spectrums of Indigeneity, and contemporary environmental degradation. With a focus on ʻohe kāpala (carved bamboo printing tools), kapa (bark cloth), and natural pigments, Lehua breathes new life into patterns and traditions practiced for generations. The artist is currently based between the Pacific Northwest and Pāpaʻikou after earning their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting with a minor in Art + Ecology at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Brenda Mallory lives in Portland, Oregon but grew up in Oklahoma and is a citizen of Cherokee Nation. She received a BA in Linguistics & English from UCLA and a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Mallory has received grants from the Oregon Arts Commission, Ford Family Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council. Awards include the Eiteljorg Museum Contemporary Native Art Fellowship, NACF National Artist Fellowship, and Ucross Native Fellowship Residency. Texture and repeated rhythmic forms are instrumental to Mallory’s abstract compositions. Using mainly reclaimed materials, she explores ideas of disruption, repair, and interconnections in long-established systems in nature and human cultures.

Andrew Michael was born in Bethel, Alaska. He and his twin brother grew up in Eagle River, Alaska. He started learning carving at age 13, learning from archeologist Bob Shaw, printmaker Joe Senungetuk, and contemporary Athabascan mask-maker, Kathleen Carlo. Michael focuses on how masks were originally used by Yup’ik people, for healing and telling stories of things unseen. His work incorporates healing practices of the Yup’ik people and religious icons of European Christianity. The artist hopes to encourage people to find healing in ways that bring about balance in much the same way he has used these practices to find balance in his own life.

Shirod Younker is an artist and educator who grew up canoeing, crabbing, clamming, and fishing the waters of the South Slough in Coos Bay, Oregon, where his tribes old village used to be. His work is deeply intertwined with community engagement and education, which includes his participation in Journeys In Creativity: Explorations in Native American Art. He and his wife also manage The Changing Currents Tribal Water Leadership program to help educate and build a network of tribal leaders and tribal youth. The program strives to create a better understanding of the hydrologic natural and man-made infrastructure systems so that all our communities can enjoy clean water in the near future.