FURTHER

About the Exhibition

FURTHER considers landscape, migration, and the social and cultural contributions of adolescents through the relationships of two narratives that are tens of thousands of years apart. By positioning a series of objects within a diorama space, this project conflates the theory of paleolithic migration down North America’s west coast with movement up the west coast by legendary graffiti artist CHAKA, a teenager who painted walls and signs from Tijuana to British Columbia in the early 1990s. Adding to long held beliefs that the Americas were first populated by familial bands migrating across the Bering land bridge, some evidence suggests that small groups of drifting, unattached juveniles also made these treks without the responsibility to support a kin group, or the need to find new resources. The body’s capacity to imagine unseen places and ability to walk 30 miles in a day, despite a lack of direct necessity, may have motivated massive journeys across unknown landscapes. Gillis questions how legends, theories, and histories have contributed to an intangible nascence that culture carries as a vital part of its existence.

About the Artist

Brian Gillis examines sociocultural issues as consequent evidence of historic moments. His work uses a variety of production strategies and conceptual approaches, often drawing from specific sites and related institutions, and range from the production of objects and editions of multiples to site-specific installations and actions.

Gillis’s distinctions include fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Oregon Arts Commission, and MacDowell Colony, and residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, International Ceramic Research Center (Denmark), and Arizona State University's School of Arts, Media, and Engineering. Gillis has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Mint Museum, CUE Art Foundation, Mildred's Lane, and the Milwaukee Art Museum, as well as Heilongjiang University (China) and the Cluj Museum of Art (Romania).

Gillis received a Master of Fine Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and is currently a Professor of Art and Director of the Center for Art Research at the University of Oregon.