Catalyst Exhibition Showcases Senior Art Majors’ Creative Journeys

Catalyst Exhibition Showcases Senior Art Majors’ Creative Journeys

LA GRANDE, Ore. – The Nightingale Gallery of Eastern Oregon University presents Catalyst, the capstone exhibition of senior art majors Claudia Juarez, Hadley Marshall, and Aiden Patterson. The exhibition opens on April 4 and runs through May 2. This exhibit focuses on the defining moments for each artist that inspire their work. There will be an opening reception on April 4 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., where all are encouraged to attend.

A catalyst is an event that sparks sudden change. Catalysts are often seen as moments that rapidly cause further experiences and states of being, and create unexpected moments amongst once-orderly places, times, and situations.

Claudia Juarez, who is deeply connected to her family, uses her distance from them as a catalyst to create. Her work in this exhibition explores the idea of familial ties, lost memory, and identity. Her work consists of abstract family portraits or scenes made entirely out of yarn. Through its loose nature, the yarn lends itself to this abstraction, where Juarez touches on the haziness of her family’s memory as she spends more time away from them. The yarn also acts as a connecting line between the figures, where it plays on the idea of family ties.

Claudia Juarez was born and raised in Ontario, Oregon, and was introduced to art at a young age. However, as the years went by, art took a back seat in her academic life. Right out of high school, she enrolled at Eastern Oregon University, and she quickly rediscovered her love for art. She then began her journey of refining her craft and acquiring new artistic skills.

Hadley Marshall explores the idea of catalysts through revisiting therapeutic mark making she made over fifteen years ago as a child, amidst constant moves her family made due to her father’s profession. Pulling paintings and drawings from a box of her childhood artwork, she deconstructs the imagery in these pieces and forces them to become lines and shapes. Through the abstraction of these marks, she represents chaotic emotion rather than subject, giving her inner child a place to air her memories of anxiety and overwhelm.

Hadley Marshall is a poet and mixed-media artist from the Pacific Northwest. She is currently studying art and writing at Eastern Oregon University. Marshall’s art has been featured in regional exhibitions, both group and juried, throughout Eastern Oregon, and her poetry has been featured in the magazine Trash Sandwich, where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Marshall is currently the Student Director of Nightingale Gallery at Eastern Oregon University.

Aiden Patterson uses his love of the human form as a catalyst to explore the boundaries of figurative drawing and sculpture. Ceramic and mixed media sculpture gives his work a physical presence, while focusing on the weight and gestures of the human body. His use of natural materials acts as a reminder that humans are not as separated from the earth as we may believe.

Patterson was born and raised in Eastern Oregon. Growing up, he has always had a love for depicting the animals and natural scenes around him through paintings and graphite drawings. Patterson attended Western Oregon University out of high school where he learned and found a passion for life drawing and depicting the human form. He then transferred to Eastern Oregon University where he experimented with abstraction and many different mediums. Eventually, he found his way to ceramic and mixed-media sculpture.

For Juarez, Marshall, and Patterson, catalysts come in many forms, and each artist uses them to their full potential to push the boundaries of what art can be. From yarn to screen printing to sculpture, these artists have created works that speak to the nature of defining moments, and how these literally take shape.

The gallery, located in Loso Hall, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.  For more information, follow the Nightingale Gallery on Facebook and Instagram.

To request images of artwork for publication or to schedule an interview with the artists, please contact Gallery Director Cory Peeke at cpeeke@eou.edu.