Lynden’s Jansen Art Center to Exhibit Paintings by WWU’s Cynthia Camlin Through Nov. 30
The paintings of Western Washington University art professor Cynthia Camlin will be exhibited at the Jansen Art Center in Lynden from Sept.6 through Nov. 30; the exhibition, titled “Boneyard & Bloom,” will feature a Sept. 6 reception from 6 – 8 p.m. with an artist talk by Camlin at 6:30 p.m.
Camlin’s paintings and drawings intermingle abstraction with description to explore environmental and geological change. “Boneyard & Bloom” is a collection of paintings from 2017 that interpret changes in the world’s oceans. The ghostly architecture of bleached coral in "Boneyard" (see image at right) evokes the withering of life in an acidifying ocean. Bloom is an ongoing series of paintings that revel in the fertility of growing reef systems. These underwater vignettes have been an opportunity for multilayered experiments with paint and process.
Camlin’s work responding to climate change has connected her with artists and curators who share environmental concerns. Her work appeared in the 2013-15 traveling international exhibition, “Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art 1775-2012;” in several important Pacific Northwest exhibitions in the last decade such as “Critical Messages: Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment,” at multiple museums and “Forecast: Communicating Weather and Climate, at the Washington State Convention Center and Accreted Terrane,” at the Museum of Northwest Art.
Camlin has received numerous residency fellowships, at the Banff Centre, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, The Hambidge Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ucross Foundation, Jentel Foundation, and Playa. She is a professor of painting and drawing at Western Washington University.
Directions, hours, and information about the Jansen Art Center are at jansenartcenter.org, or (360) 354-3600.
Image: "Boneyard" by Cynthia Camlin, watercolor, Flashe, acrylic, on paper mounted on 6 panels, 46”h x 94”w, 2017