Master of fine arts student Yvonne Stubbs, the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, presented “Bloodline” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on Wednesday night, a performance piece conceived from family history. The piece tells the story of her “black indian” ancestors in Oklahoma – descendants of African slaves and their Native American slaveholders.
Stubbs was one of three second-year MFA students who were on-hand to discuss their work with a group of 15 spectators at the first of two gallery talks to take place during the exhibition, which runs until June 17.
The stunning red dress Stubbs wore at the opening reception the previous Friday night hung alone in a corner of the upstairs gallery. Above it, a speaker played her spoken and sung words about family members such as “Bug Crusher,” a tall man who was run off the reservation after he sold bad whiskey.
“To me, this is art,” Stubbs said in her heartfelt, gospel voice. “This is who I am.”
When asked about her experience at the museum, Stubbs responded, “It was frightening and rewarding at the same time.”
The chance to show in one of the biggest art galleries in Oregon is perhaps the greatest benefit to these students. It’s a place that digital artist Carl Diehl called a “real museum.”
His installation, self-described as something gone awry that you might find in a neighbor’s garage, is fully interactive. Composed of a desk, an old Apple computer and a wardrobe-like chest with twitching images and electronic instruments, among other features, his work is more than just something to look at, it’s “the aesthetics of malfunction,” he said.
This, of course, takes shape in a “meta-Fortian network” dealing with “blobsquatching,” “circuit bending” and “cryptozoology,” Diehl explained to the amused crowd surrounding his work. Although the definitions of these words seem as obscure as some of the materials he works with, Diehl’s enthusiasm is contagious.
And so is that of fellow MFA student Joshua Hulst, who hopes the “semi-realistic perspective” he presents through printmaking will provoke visitors to “see beyond this synthetic experience to the real experience.”
His work is often gray or beige and subtly toned but with splashes and blocks of vivid color or centered on an absurd machine and the “nasty influences all these objects are creating,” he said.
His prints are small, but articulate and perceptive takes on contemporary mechanized life.
According to the museum, the artists on display are concluding their degree sequence and will be reviewed, by committee, at the museum before receiving their masters.
“It’s hard to fit 19 people and their egos in a space like this,” assistant professor of art Chris Coleman said of the presentation. But it looks as if “everybody got enough.”