Join College of Western Idaho’s (CWI) Visiting Artist Series in welcoming artist Christine Atkinson to the Nampa Campus Academic Building (NCAB) on March 27.
Atkinsons works explore how the land tells a story. Burn scars, wildfire debris, damaged water systems and sites of intense colonial history all weave their way through the photography, installation and sculpture of Atkinson’s practice.
These places spread throughout the West are haunted, bearing witness to western expansion and exploitation. Importantly they are not remote but accessible. They are part of the everyday, found on the edges of roadsides, in our county parks and along transit routes. History, ecology, the wilderness, these are all things that are intertwined with our daily lives. By drawing out these stories through her work, Atkinson nurtures the connection between the land and the people who inhabit it. She gives a voice and agency to those who have been forgotten and to stories that have been overwritten.
Atkinson was born in Stockton, CA and raised in Northern California. She received her undergraduate degree from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara California and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.
Atkinson has shown work both across the United States as well as internationally. The Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum in Long Beach California, SOIL in Seattle, Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, Focus Photo LA and has participated in “Art in Paper New York'', the London Art Fair, Uniòn in Mexico City and SCOTTY in Berlin Germany. Atkinson recently had a solo show, “Are we here for ourselves alone?” at the Bountiful Davis Art Center, in Bountiful Utah. She is the creator of the ongoing research project “The Native Garden Map”, which is a database of native plant spaces and gardens in the Los Angeles area. Atkinson is a current member of the artist collective, Monte Vista Projects. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Join us as Atkinson presents a lecture and workshop on her artistic practice and creative process.
Artist Lecture and Workshop
Friday, March 27
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Nampa Campus Academic Building (NCAB), room 206
Atkinson will host a hands-on photographic workshop that explores how photographs are a memory of contact between light and the world using the cyanotype process. Participants will make sun prints with found materials, negatives and anything else that they can find. This quick and simple process allows for experimentation and expression. While some materials will be provided, students are also encouraged to bring in materials that they are interested in working with and that connect to their own art practices and interests.
CWI’s Visiting Artist Series is made possible through a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, which is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Events are free and open to the public.
For those with questions or in need of more information, contact ericmullis@cwi.edu.
