Joe Feddersen, Echo

The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is thrilled to present an exhibition of work by celebrated artist Joe Feddersen. The exhibition, Echo, will debut a new series of prints Feddersen produced during his time as artist-in-residence with PNCA’s Watershed Center for Fine Art Publishing and Research, working with students in our MFA in Print Media program under the guidance of program chair and master printer, Matthew Letzelter. The new large-scale works are in dialog with Feddersen’s 2014 piece, Charmed, comprised of more than 400 pieces of fused glass, which will also be on display.

The exhibition will focus on Feddersen’s use of ancient glyphs and his development of his own visual vocabulary of new glyphs based upon popular culture and repeated forms from the urban environment. He deploys these glyphs to create arrangements resembling traditional indigenous patterns.

Feddersen, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, lives and works in Omak, WA. He was awarded Faculty Emeritus status from Evergreen State College for his teaching from 1989 until his retirement in 2009. In 2018 he was give the the Luminaries Legacy Award from the Museum of Northwest Art. His work was included in Weaving Past into Present: Experiments in Contemporary Native American Printmaking at the International Print Center, New York, Autumn 2015. He has been featured in numerous national exhibitions, including Continuum 12 Artists: Joe Feddersen, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution at the George Gustav Heye Center, New York, NY, curated by Truman Lowe; Land Mark, Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Spokane, WA; and was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition and monograph, Vital Signs, organized in conjunction with Froelick Gallery and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, OR. His work has been collected by many institutions, such as: Whitney Museum of American Art, Heard Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Portland Art Museum, and many others.

PNCA’s Watershed Center for Fine Art Publishing and Research is the research and education extension of the printmaking lab at Pacific Northwest College of Art, staffed and supported through the MFA in Print Media program. Throughout the year Watershed hosts visiting artists, researchers, and professional printers. In addition to Feddersen, recent visiting artists have included Alison Saar and Storm Tharp. Through Watershed, Print Media students and faculty are offered unique access to professional experiences working with contemporary artists, galleries, and museums on a range of projects and events.

This exhibition is made possible with support from Froelick Gallery.