On View: June 7-June 29, 2024
First Friday Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 5–7 p.m.
(Gallery opens at noon on First Fridays)
The Bear Gallery is located on the third floor of the Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts building in Pioneer Park, 2300 Airport Way, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Consumed by Allison Juneau
Allison Juneau is a landscape and botanical artist from Oklahoma. She employs a highly textural impasto method using oil paint and cold wax medium in her large scale paintings. In 2011, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a Minor in Art History from the University of Oklahoma, before uprooting her life to explore the subarctic. She then received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2020, and still works for the University as a staff member, instructor, and visiting artist.
Artist Statement
“…the force that through the green fuse drives the flower…” – Dylan Thomas
“Sharing joy with your community is an essential part of the gardening experience. In this body of work, I hope to share my deep enthusiasm and love for growing things by capturing the fleeting and ephemeral moments the way that I see and remember them; through color, light, and texture. What began as a simple pandemic houseplant hobby has thoroughly rooted itself into my artistic practice over the past several years. I have always been most artistically motivated by the simple joys, the almost-mundane and the close-to-home images in my work. Maintaining a robust plant collection in my modest cabin during a cold snap is not a simple task, but the much loved indoor garden has provided me endless artistic inspiration and comfort in uncertain times.
In 2020, so many lives were upended. In my own little corner of the world, that same social turbulence shook me like a snowglobe and landed me in an unfinished home with no plumbing, little furniture and a hole in my ceiling – with winter looming large just a few months away. Compared to what so many experienced during those years, I still feel very lucky in many, many ways. Coinciding with these personal upheavals, my friend’s lovely mother moved to the Lower 48 and needed someone to take a lifetime’s worth of houseplants. All of them.
This memory remains as one of those truly poignant moments in life when the timing could not be better. Thanks to a core group of wonderful friends, my empty house, home, and heart was suddenly a chaotically beautiful indoor jungle. The simple act of caretaking these lovely living things from day to day transformed me in so many wonderful ways. The simple work allowed me to exert creative control over my immediate surroundings, in a very self-actualizing and restorative way.
These humble experiences have sparked a passion in me to not just observe nature, but to also be an active participant in learning how to care for them. I feel driven to document and share my joy of their simple, sublime moments. I truly believe plant collectors and gardening hobbyists alike will recognize and share in this unquenchable spark of energy that so enriches my life. I am consumed!”
-Allison Juneau
Paths Explored by Nikki Kinne
Nikki Kinne’s formal art education started at Seattle Pacific University in 1973, with focus in oils, and completed with a degree in Sculpture in 1991 from the University of Alaska – Fairbanks. This was the beginning of ongoing systematic studies in different media. In 2002 Nikki narrowed her focus by launching Watercolors by Nikkinne.
During Nikki’s full time art career, she discovered teaching art to be one of her greatest loves. Backed by her ever-supportive husband Ken Kokjer, she turned her attention to building artist opportunities to market art in the area through partnerships with June Rogers, Jo Scott, the Fairbanks Downtown Association and the Chamber of Commerce.
These activities led to many awards and honors, including the Arts & Leadership Interior Mayors’ Award in 2011. Other honors included being chosen to design the 2010 Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival poster and being recognized as the 2011 Chamber of Commerce Artist of the Year.
In 2013 Nikki retired from the business of art with one outstanding commitment; to do a joint show with her mentor, Helen Klebesadel. The show required learning how to design fabric. Her first efforts were beyond deplorable, so she started working with fabric. This meant she needed to learn to sew.
Like many others from large families, Nikki’s creativity was usually focused in areas not already taken by her siblings. Sewing was Nikki’s oldest sister, Denice Moody’s creative brilliance, and part of their younger sister, Dawna Kinne Magliacano’s successful art career. Nikki planned to dabble in fabric
long enough to acquire a basic language. However, a linking with ancestors happened and Nikki felt she had finally come home while playing with random scraps of material.
A request from Nikki’s son, Kevin O’Brien, for a “Van Gogh inspired quilt,” resulted in an interest in painting her own brushstrokes with fabric. Quickly, she realized she needed to solve compositional problems before cutting lots of little pieces of material. Nikki started composing her quilts by first doing a watercolor, thus launching a body of work pairing paintings with quilts.
Over the years, Nikki’s values have shifted away from achieving the expertise of sister Denice or creative brilliance of sister Dawna. Instead, she claims “I’m not a good sewer. I’m a fabric lover who likes experimenting and pushing the edges of the medium rather than being a seeker of perfection!” Please join us in enjoying the results of Nikki Kinne’s artist’s journey.
Artist Statement
“For me ‘Paths Explored’ is a study and recognition of choices. Choices taken, especially in risky new directions, both in life and artistic pursuits. As a narrative artist (storyteller), I study human constructs and concepts through visual analogies. As a creative explorer I am not afraid to try new things in the hope of discovering new possibilities.
All the artworks for this exhibition were selected with the intention of sharing a glimpse into the creative process itself, rather than focusing purely on developing masterful pieces of art. I value inspiring others in their creative work as much or more than developing pristine mature artworks to be celebrated for mastery of the mediums.
I believe there is a deep relationship between all areas of existence. For me this means recognition of the existence of repeating patterns, like seeing the laws of physics reflected in the social sciences, or a correlation between unexpected change and new growth in nature and people. This pattern seeking underlies my creative work. I am particularly interested in how human endeavor and discovery most often happens at points of ‘failure’ when things don’t go ‘right.’ I have noticed we are reluctant to try anything new until the practices we use no longer serve us. We can learn the most when we push ourselves beyond our comfort levels – when we leave behind what we already know with courage to explore – even if it means we may not at first succeed.
The exhibition is grouped around concepts of ‘causes and effects.’ The organizing theme highlights relationships between action or event and consequence or result. Major sections of the show have explanations regarding what was discovered, why a direction was taken, and what was learned in the process in retrospect. (I may not have known where I would end up when I started.)
If ‘Paths Explored’ encourages you to travel in a new direction, even with something as simple as how you listen for a bird or wash a dish, I will consider it a great success. If you embrace your ‘failures’ on the creative journey with pride, claiming them as successes for what you learned as a result, then I will be humbled and thankful for playing a small part towards inspiring you.”
-Nikki Kinne
These events are free and open to the public thanks to our generous donors and sponsors.
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