Christine Clark
Arts/Industry: Foundry, 2014
Christine Clark is an artist and teaches at Oregon College of Art and Craft, in Portland, Oregon, where she is a professor and head of the Metals department. Along with teaching traditional metalsmithing, jewelry and small sculpture, her personal work focuses on installation work in steel wire and mixed materials. In July 2014, she had a solo exhibition titled “Amass”, an installation consisting of over 550 cast urethane abstract forms.
There are a few essential components that she reaches toward when generating a body of work. She immerses herself in process while working with a strong craft based awareness. Abstraction frees her to ideate spontaneously and helps her viewer adopt an objective eye. She often works with repetition and multiples. Her subject matter is generally directly related to the populace – habits, routine, idiosyncrasies and practices in life. She strives to make her work relate to experiences and points of view people retain in their daily lives. Although her approach to portraying concept is abstract, she subtly offers a message while providing visual and emotional stimulation.
She has been awarded the Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship Grant as well as a Career Development Grant. She has work in public places in Washington and Oregon as well as numerous private collections. She frequently teaches workshops at schools such as Penland, Haystack, Arrowmont and Appalachian Center. Clark is a member of Nine Gallery, a non-profit alternative art gallery that specializes in experimental and installation-based work in Portland, Oregon.