On April 14th, 2025, Evergreen’s senior and graduating art students collaborated to open the second annual Ouroboros art exhibit, in the art gallery space on the main floor of Evans Hall.The first work I happened upon when visiting this gallery was a collection of six gelatin prints, what appear to be old film photos, of black and white horizons captured by Stuart Rosemurgy and titled Artificial Horizon. Like words on a page, these photos invite one to read and interpret them. Something distant and nostalgic arises. In almost every photo, the light feels bright beyond the horizon, over exposing the edges of the hill sides. A street sign appears in one such photo, with an arrow pointing to the left, indicating these photos were taken from a road, and in this particular one around a careening bend. As we round this corner, we are being told to look back. Of Artificial Horizon, Rosemurgy writes “Read from left to right, the horizon line appears connected, but upon closer inspection, continuity fractures. This work seeks to open fissures on linearity to question our perceptions of history and time.”
Alec Phipps is showcasing two ceramics pieces, a pair, titled Ebba and Oog. The color of the glaze is a flesh tone, and paired with the big oozing drips seen on both Ebba and Oog, these pieces look like skin, down to the sheen which makes them appear as though they are sweating. One can also see that some of the sort of cups, which make “Ebba” look almost like a strawberry planter, and lumps are hand built, pressed in with finger shaped dips. What is brought to light is the humanity of art, turning artistic perfectionism into something that reflects a beautiful, more messy and shedding, imperfection. In their artist statement, Phipps states that throughout their ceramic work they have “found interest in many intersecting themes, such as identity, the body, gender, abject art, and transitional states.” They go on to say that they “often create ceramic sculptures of flesh, folds, tears, sweat, oozes, holes, and tubes– vessels [they] describe as ‘homunculi.’” These are meant to “hold great personal significance to what it means to be a living and breathing being.”
A piece titled The Anatomy of Memories by Nichole Czajkowski consists of over 40 pieces of nylon thread, staggered and side by side, with pieces of ceramics, resins, brass, and copper charms hanging from them. The piece feels interactive, like you want to run your fingers through the charms and hear them jingle like a wind chime. However, the nature of these being mostly ceramic makes one feel as though the piece is fragile, and the images on the ceramics feel deeply personal, the most prominent of which are fragments of “love you xxx”, “ooo xxx dad”, “I”, and “love you.” There are baby photos and a scan of a driver’s license printed onto the ceramics. Other pieces appear like shells, pocket knives, soda can tabs, cars, used gum, and crumpled cigarettes. This piece oozes nostalgia and truly reflects an anatomy of memories with its use of poetic imagery– images which anamorphically and non-linearly come in and out of view. Of their piece, Czajkowski writes “As I sit in the delicate chiming sparkles of seemingly unconnected or contextually flat recollections, I’m lulled into a labyrinth of fractured amalgams with blurred edges and enigmatic details.”
Erica Christopherson showcases a piece titled Salmon Woman— a draping of different natural materials and various ceramic pieces all together in a plexiglass case. A wonderful array of textures are felt from the fur pelt lining the bottom of Salmon Woman, to the metallic peacock ore refraction from some of the ceramics pieces, symmetrical and asymmetrical in shape, the brightness of the carnelian agate beads, and feathers laid in between the ceramics. Another feather, made out of copper, is seen atop a wooden box, adding depth in the corner of the case. The box is painted with Native art in red and black on the front, and in teal and black on the side. Throughout, we see speckles and stripes, divots and curves, softness, pearlescent and iridescent moving colors, the definition of beaded earrings and a carnelian pendant beautifully set in silver. Indigos blues to sunset oranges, iron reds, and river stone purples, creamy shell tones, bright aurora purples and sky blues, and copper constitute the palette of this visual wonder of a collection. In their artist statement, Christopherson shares that “this work is a visual telling of the Coast Salish story, ‘Salmon Woman.’… This story is about the importance of matriarchal sacrifice and understanding, and its value to our culture. The significance of reciprocity to our land and selves in this story is a reminder we can all heed and decide to act upon in the ultimate gift of love.”
(Un)tethered by Angus Hennig is a “hand-bound and multi-media art book.” We are immediately drawn in by the soft painted fabric of the oblong shaped cover, which shows a grotesquely wrinkled and oozing face. There are pimples, snot and tears running, a full view of crooked teeth, and painfully placed ‘staples’ in the corners, with fleshy stitches binding the book. The click of the sturdy cover hits the tall platform it sits on as we open the book. The word “Body” is traced out in intestines which then squiggle around this front page, and handwritten underneath is the following: “This is that body of mine. Flesh and fat and hair and pores and skin and veins and muscle and scabs and blood and mucus and discharge and pus and spit and all in between
This is that body of mine, yours, we, god and spirit, essence of vessel…” This strange and complex multi-media art book goes on to muse on parts of the body such as the hands, hair, belly, intestines, the skin and the head, following themes such as childhood and queerness throughout, and expresses a deep vulnerability. This vulnerability is expressed through Hennig speaking on things such as their Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and their dermatillomania. Speaking on their head, they illustrate the extraordinary of the ordinary of what it is to be living in a body: “This head of mine is nothing special… I remember that this skull of mine carries a precious, soft, fragile being. The being is my mind.” This book covers so much, and so much that many hide due to the shame of being imperfect– things that leave behind stains and dead skin cells and toenail clippings. Other themes explored are joy, pain, disorientation, distortion, the cluttered experience of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), depression, suffering, death, decomposition, and birth via the fetus and womb. The book ends with a series of pages that are absolutely saturated in the brightest array of colors, communicating once and for all the beautiful and vibrant complexity of the human experience– excretions and all.
Many of the pieces described here present something that really blurs the line between certain conceptions or expectations, rooted in colonialism and white supremacy culture, that we have of our human bodies in order to separate it from the truth of the animal nature of our bodies. It is such an interesting and uncomfortable tension that so many of us hold, often through necessity in order to survive the mechanization of capitalism. These are presented from the ethereal to the grotesque, from the beautiful fur pelt we see in Salmon Woman to unsightly clippings of human hair glued to a page in (Un)tethered.
