Part of Wendy Given's Creatiio exhibition at Hap gallery in 2014

Tomorrow Wendy Given will discuss her work in the brand new Mediatheque hall at PNCA. Given is one of numerous local artists who explores the way nature creeps into our consciousness via the way it disrupts the sense of what is contemporary. In fact, it is often pagan and sci-fi at the same time... making the genre an heir to surrealism in some important ways. Basically, animals have a way of taking viewers out of time and creating an empathetic and or fight or flight present (some bright curator could do a challenging survey with her Malia Jensen, Vanessa Renwick, Vicky Lynn Wilson, Ellen George, Laura Fritz, Paul Clay, Paula Rebsom, Julia Oldham, Melody Owen, Rick Bartow, sometimes Heidi Schwegler and Seattle's Jeffry Mitchell exploring animal in the contemporary art ecosystem but our institutions don't really look all that hard at trends regionally, even though nearly all of these artists show outside the region in major institutions). Maybe it is the fact that most of these artists are women? We tend not to value empathy/nature in art, especially when it is existentially unsettling. Which is a great lead in to checking out Given's talk.

Artist Talk: Wendy Given
July 22, 6:30 - 8:00PM
PNCA (Mediatheque)
511 NW Broadway