An Art Gallery & Gift Shop in Fairbanks
Fairbanks Arts Association, in partnership with Fairbanks North Star Borough Parks and Recreation, offers free admission to the fine art gallery & gift shop located in the heart of Pioneer Park. The Bear Gallery is on the third floor of the Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts in Pioneer Park at 2300 Airport Road.
Winter hours: Noon to 6 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
Summer hours: (June, July, and August): Noon to 8 pm, Daily.
Scroll through to see what we have in the Bear Gallery & Gift Shop this month.
See a list of upcoming Bear Gallery exhibits.
We offer gift certificates!
In need of a gift for someone artistic? How about a gift certificate that not only promises new art purchases, but also provides artist development opportunities?
Bear Gallery gift certificates are redeemable in the gallery and gift shop, for our artist workshops and for entry fees to one of our exhibitions!
February 2019
Northern Wax II & Flow
In February, pay a visit to the Bear Gallery to enjoy two exhibitions at the same time!
Hal Gage’s Flow
In one half, renowned local artist Hal Gage’s exhibition of photographs, entitled Flow, will provide mesmerizing views of silt suspended in glacial melt waters.
Northern Wax II
by the Interior Alaska Wax chapter of the International Encaustic Artist Association
In the other half of the gallery, with 7 contributing artists, the Interior Alaska Wax chapter of the International Encaustic Artist (IEA) Association will show you Northern Wax II, a variety of artwork created using the encaustic technique.
Meet the artists of this exhibition:
Nancy Burnham
Nancy Burnham lives and works in Ester, Alaska. She has been working with encaustics for the past two decades. She works in both 2D and 3D. She became interested in encaustics after seeing works by Jasper Johns and others. Johns was able to create meatiness and texture in his encaustic paintings. Thisappealed to Burnham and has influenced much of her work. Over her career she has explored techniques that involve painting sculpting, pouring wax and the use of a variety of surface treatments. She is excited to share not only what she has learned but to impart a love of encaustic painting.
Rebekah Gormish
Rebekah Gormish is a Fairbanks resident who is enthralled with capturing light, shadow and color with her camera. She discovered and further developed a process to marry her images with encaustic wax, giving her work a luminescent and ethereal quality. She calls herself the Accidental Artist.
Mariah Henderson
Mariah Henderson earned her B.F.A in painting in metalsmithing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2016. Her artwork explores different ways to visually represent emotions and meaningful places. Her artwork is inspired by the natural world, folklore, and myths. The surfaces Mariah works on are gradually built from layers of wax and textures, mark-making, sewing, collage, and carving. Gradually, an environment and characters emerge and become part of the organic story created.
https://www.elmdesignsak.com/about
Lara McGlinchy
Born, raised, and currently living in Fairbanks, Alaska, the natural landscape of my surroundings have always crept their way into my art making. As an introvert, observer, and curious mind, I am equally interested in people, connection, and the human experience. My work dives into both realms, sometimes simultaneously while other times unattached. After completing my BFA in Painting from UAF in 2013, I almost immediately switched from acrylic to encaustic as my primary medium. The layering of imagery and material has great significance when exploring my interests as it relates to life, emotion, and time.
https://www.laramcglinchy.com/
Jennifer Moss
Inspired especially by polychromatic winters, summer days brimming with light, and our northern extreme weather events, Jennifer Moss, a near-lifelong Alaskan, uses contemporary visual elements to interpret the natural environment. She uses encaustic to connect with the beauty of nature through abstraction and the luminous quality of the medium. Jennifer studied at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and is currently an instructional designer and adjunct faculty at UAF. View her portfolio at http://jmossart.com
Tina Shih
Tina Shih is a painter and mixed media artist. Alaska has been her most profound mentor. The qualities of encaustic painting provide diverse and expressive possibilities for her explorations. She currently lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Katlian Stark
Katlian Stark is a Fairbanks born and raised artist currently living out in the Goldstream Valley, twenty minutes outside Fairbanks, Alaska in a cabin with her two cats. She completed a B.F.A. in painting from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 2012 with a minor in women’s studies. During that program she cultivated an interest in embroidery, crochet, and a wide variety of materials, which culminated in the style she currently works in. Recently Katlian has been using encaustics to combine paper, colored wax, and other materials into portraits of everyday objects.
February’s Gift Shop Artist of the Month
Wayne Jex
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”
– Robert Bresson, French film director.
This quote embodies what I am trying to do in a very small way with my photography. I want to make something visible in a way that may be different from the way others see the same thing, at a slightly different perspective from the way that they may see it, or of a subject that they may have not been in the presence of. I’m not very good with words, which is one reason I try to communicate with images. A long time friend who has seen a lot of my photography told me that I “do serenity well.” I hope that is one thing that comes through in some of my images.
I’ve been interested in photography since I was old enough to hold an old box camera loaded with roll film and discovered what pressing the shutter can produce. There have been a lot of changes since then in the technology used to produce a photograph. With digital photography, I try not to “Photoshop” my images in ways that I could not have done in the darkroom, but would have been more difficult and time consuming there.
For a long time, I only took photographs of nature, and some of man-made landscapes with a minimum of people and their effects. Then I ended up in the Army in Vietnam and got “hooked” on photos of the people there, as it was my first time in a different country and culture. I concentrated on people and informal portraits of them for a long time after that – even though I live in Alaska; one of the most beautiful, elemental, ethereal, inspiring, and spiritual landscapes in the world. It’s only in the last few years that I have started taking photographs of nature again.
“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”
– Albert Camus
– Wayne Jex
February Watercolor Corner Artist
Howard “Rich” Richardson
My name is Howard “Rich” Richardson and I’m 68 years of age. My wife Angie and I have been married 26 years and together we have 4 children and 7 grandchildren. I’m originally from Tupelo, MS, and came to Alaska with the Army in 1973. I served 2 years at Ft. Wainwright where I received my honorable discharge from the military in 1975. I have lived and worked in Fairbanks ever since, with the exception of about 3 years in Atlanta, Ga. to attend DeVry for electronics. I retired from GVEA in 2015 after working there for 30 years as a meter technician with the IBEW. My wife still works part-time as a social worker for Denali Center. Shortly after my retirement I began studying watercolor painting with Tom Nixon. I had previously worked in acrylics and had done a little watercolor painting, however I had never really explored this medium until working with Tom and attending workshops with Mick McAndrews and Sterling Edwards. I hope you enjoy viewing some of my work.
– Howard “Rich” Richardson
