Today, we are celebrating scissors, ephemera, and glue at the Maude Kerns Art Center's stunning exhibition, “Piecing It Together: A Regional Collage Exhibit,” running through July 17th. Celebrating sixty-nine artists, this show demonstrates what salvage, collaboration, and reinvented perspectives look like.
Let’s focus on three standout highlights. First, look at Eugene artist Jan Linz, whose piece "9 Women" features a whimsical grid of expressive, contour-drawn faces.
Nearby, Michael Whitenack's inscrutable "It's About Time" presents a wooden panel carved with sharp, leaf-shaped apertures. Through these openings, we glimpse dramatic, historical news headlines from decades past. At the center of this temporal map, an enigmatic, long-eared creature cradles a delicate, white cloud-puff in its paws—a poetic symbol of fleeting, ephemeral moments framed by the relentless march of history.
Contrast those intimate, graphic puzzles with the expansive Indigenous vision of artist Analee Fuentes. Her breathtaking mixed media collage, Nch’i – Wána "In-CHEE WAH-nuh,"or "The Big River," presents a sacred Columbia River crowned goddess. A majestic bald eagle swoops above her braided hair as she holds sacred sage. At her feet, salmon and lamprey swim in an underwater world, and a native camas bulb sprouts at the origin of us all. It is a deeply spiritual, layered masterpiece of connection, place, and ancestral memory.
These regional artists prove that collage is a powerful vehicle to process history, culture, and personal wonder. "Piecing It Together" is a vibrant testament to the art of rebuilding our world from fragments.
The exhibition is on display now through July 17th at the Maude Kerns Art Center on East 15th Avenue. Come step inside, discover these unexpected visual statements, and find yourself inspired by the incredible versatility of regional collage.
