New Art and Sounds from the Pacific Northwest: Indie Folk will be on view at Bellevue Arts Museum September 16 – August 14, 2022

Bellevue, WA—Bellevue Arts Museum is pleased to present New Art and Sounds from the Pacific Northwest: Indie Folk. The exhibition, opens at BAM on September 16
The Pacific Northwest is home to a unique artistic ecosystem involving craft traditions, indigenous cultures, and settler histories. Like folk art, the works featured here are handmade, unpretentious, and often blur the line between functionality and aesthetics. For the artists—patchwork quilters and abstract painters alike—a rural and working-class ethos of passed down knowledge and making do with what you have is as foundational as academics and studio technique.

The exhibition features an intergenerational array of 17 notable artists from throughout the region including Marita Dingus, Warren Dykeman, Joe Feddersen, Blair Saxon-Hill, Sky Hopinka, and Cappy Thompson. A playlist of Indie Folk music selected by Portland’s Mississippi Records, a record label and shop, will accompany the exhibition, filling the galleries with the sound of the Pacific Northwest.

New Art and Sounds from the Pacific Northwest: Indie Folk is organized by Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU and guest curated by Melissa E. Feldman. Funding for this exhibition is provided by the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Endowment, the Mildred S. Bissinger Endowment, Nancy Spitzer, Patrick and Elizabeth Siler, and members of the JSMA WSU Media Partners: KCTS 9, The Seattle Times, The Stranger

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU—The primary galleries of the museum are integral to the educational mission of Washington State University. Offering engagement with local, national and international art/artists to the WSU and surrounding communities all while creating active partnerships across campus to integrate the visual arts into every aspect of the university’s mission. The WSU Schnitzer Museum adheres to the highest standards of professionalism in pursuing accreditation and building future generations of museum professionals through intern training and focused studies offered through a Exhibition Studies Minor.
Melissa Feldman—Along with her ongoing work as an independent curator and writer, Feldman held positions for the last several years as distinguished visiting faculty at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, and director of the Neddy Artist Awards. Feldman has been a frequent contributor to Art in America and Frieze among other international publications and has taught at the California College of Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and Goldsmith’s College, London.

ABOUT BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM
Bellevue Arts Museum provides a public forum for the community to contemplate, appreciate, and discuss visual culture. We work with audiences, artists, makers, and designers to understand our shared experience of the world. bellevuearts.org
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