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Schneider Museum of Art

Welcome to the Schneider Museum of Art!

Current Exhibition:

James Lavadour: The Properties of Paint and Selections from Crow Shadow Institute of the Arts

July 11- September 13, 2008

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 10,  5:00-7:00

 

I see time, space, and event in the properties of paint.  The    properties of paint are infinite, and a painting is a model for infinity.  The essence of painting is an organic event. – James Lavadour

James Lavadour (b. 1951) is of Walla Walla heritage and is a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.  He lives and works at his home and studio on the reservation, and is the founder of the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts.

In 2000, the painter James Lavadour began a body of work that came to him with a force he describes in volcanic terms – an explosion, an out flowing of energy.  Up until that time, Lavadour was best known for kinetic landscape paintings that are evocative of the geological forces that shaped the earth of his homeland, the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon.  Working in tones of earth and fire, Lavadour uses processes of layering, scraping, and wiping that in macrocosm and over millennia also formed the hills and ridges the artist grew up walking, around the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

 

This exhibition examines the conceptual layers underlying Lavadour’s work of the past eight years.  In this body of work, he brings together two strands – his landscapes and what he calls “interiors” or architectural “structures” or “abstractions” – in the new images.  The paintings are works of natural and physical forces, in which the properties of pain – the physicality of liquid and mineral, interacting with gravity and surface – are revealed.- Rebecca Dobkins, associate professor of anthropology and faculty curator of Native American Art, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University.

 

I had been painting before but not like this.  In June of 2000, I just began.  I made hundreds of paintings.  Simple marks and events at first, then compounding layers and passages of time.  Everything that I know and remembered began to cascade before me.  I began to paint in an out flowing burst.  I was shaken by so much energy. I felt I was in a small house as some giant form- the shadow of a cloud, and eclipse- passed by.   James Lavadour

 

Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts was founded by James Lavadour and a group of supporters in 1992.  The institute is a non-profit art facility designed to bring technology, instruction, and cultural exchange to artists on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Eastern Oregon. It provides Native artists with both educational and professional opportunities to utilize art as a vehicle for economic development. Artists included in this exhibition from Crow’s Shadow’s permanent collection include: Rick Bartow, Edgar Heap of Birds, Joe Fedderson, James Lavadour, Truman Lowe, Lillian Pitt, Ryan Lee Smith, Kay Walkingstick, and Marie Watt.

Organized by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, James Lavadour: The Properties of Paint has been supported by an endowment gift from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, through their Spirit Mountain Community Fund. Additional support was provided by grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.

 

Many thanks to Crow’s Shadow Institute for their assistance in the loan of work from their collection.

 

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