Opening Reception: Friday, November 1, 5-7pm 

On View in the Bear Gallery: November 1 – November 30, 2019 

Be sure to visit the Fairbanks Arts Bear Gallery in November to experience two exhibits by local artists, Brianna Reagan and LJ Evans. Below, read more about the two visual artists! 

Brianna Reagan – Feast + Famine

“I was born in 1986, and spent the first half of my life in and around the Bay Area of California. Spending much of my impressionable years on the coast, I gravitate to all things marine. My biological father was also a deep-sea diver in the Navy, so our house was always filled with finds from the ocean. Ironically, I now live in the state with the most coast-line, and I’m the furthest away from the water. 

Living and working in Alaska has its own challenges, but Alaska has begun to creep into my imagery over the past few years. The wilderness is so abundant and so profound here, that it is actually a struggle to not find inspiration in my daily routine.

Being constantly invaded with images and ideas, I indulge my mind to make connections within them.  My art then becomes about connection, about the relationship between objects or characters, and about the journey from concept to completed work of art. My art also connects me to my obsessive need for details and profound need for visual order. The details are then an outlet for these compulsive energies, allowing me to connect uniquely with each work of art.

My paintings are applied to a wood surface or panel, with hand drawn details in inks, markers, or color pencils. The mixed media approach further complements the combination of ideas and captures more details and intricacies of the character or object, while also satisfying my compulsive energy.

I currently live and work in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I love to hate it, but hate to leave it.” – Brianna Reagan

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LJ Evans – Here Then Are Faces 

LJ Evans has been taking pictures since she was about 11 years old, when her parents gave her a Kodak Brownie Holiday camera for Christmas. She’s never stopped making photographs, but the means, methods and motivations for image-making have evolved considerably.

Though Evans has created work using various color photographic materials as well, her favorite images have always been black and white. For the last few years she’s been working with a 20-pound, more than 80-year-old Ansco wooden 8×10 field camera to create paper negatives. She scans the negatives at high resolution on a flatbed scanner, processes them with Photoshop and creates the final images using high-quality archival digital printers.

The images Evans is making now weave together 40 years of experience making photographs using film and paper with the freshness, flexibility and immediacy of the tools, software and printing possibilities with digital technology. 

It’s an exciting time to be a photographer.

 

For questions, email gallery@fairbanksarts.org or call (907) 456-6485.

 

Fairbanks Arts programs are made possible by individual and corporate contributions, the City of Fairbanks Hotel/Motel Bed Tax, Fairbanks North Star Borough and Alaska State Council on the Arts.