Michelle Forsyth
Age: 32
Born in Vancouver B.C., currently living in Pullman.
Type of art: Painting, constructions, electronic imaging.
College: Master of Fine Art, Rutgers University, 2002; Bachelor of Fine Art, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., summa cum laude, 1996.
Day job: Assistant professor of art at Washington State University. Teaching load includes painting, drawing and electronic imaging.
Describe your work: “In its formal rendering, my work emphasizes the magnitude of my subject matter, paired against an intimate network of hand drawn marks. Recently, I have been producing these pieces in gouache on vellum, but in the past, I have also worked in oil on wood, needlepoint and digital video.”
New developments: Forsyth has just returned from a six-week thematic residency at the Banff Center in Banff, Alberta, where 34 artists from around the globe were invited to participate.
The theme of the residency was examining the “importance of multiple and fractured forms of national relationships occurring within supposedly unified nations.” Forsyth produced work that dealt with media images that threaten this supposed unity.
“I worked to examine ‘images of terror’ by focusing on a single image,” Forsyth said. “Using the image as a source for my piece, I fractured it into many small floral-shaped pieces of cut paper. I worked to control the image so that only when seen from afar it would come together into a seemingly unified whole. The tiny pieces of colored paper were mounted directly to the wall with beads acting as spacers, holding the colors in place.”
Upcoming shows: “The Spokane River and the Great Gorge Park,” a group show at the Lorinda Knight Gallery, 523 W. Sprague. The opening reception is Aug. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m.; show runs through Sept. 25. Solo exhibition in January 2005 at the Grand Forks Art Gallery in Grand Forks, B.C.
She has exhibited her work in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C.; Toronto; New Jersey; and New York City.
E-mail: mforsyth@orangesideout.com
Forsyth’s work online: www.orangesideout.com, www.wsu.edu/~mforsyth, www.anthology-of-art.net and www.lorindaknight.com.
– Julianne Crane, staff writer
(509) 459-5435