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Come to the WatersMemories, landscapes, waterways, and paint. Un-awakened dreams lost moments; the time has forgotten. Charcoals move as black matter, within a vortex of shattered dreams. Clovis Community College Reception: October 13, 2022, 4:00PM - 6:30PM On Exhibition: October 1 - 29, 2022
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"In my painting installations, I am speaking through a body of work as a process of thought. My geopolitical land-based work is of the poetics. Seen in the tensions of the gap, between and unspoken are the generations upon generations of a present weighted past. The gap is as a severing in time and space birthed out of the belly of humanity. These paintings are my attempt to disengage from my post-colonial entanglement. Images of the land and water run through these works as metaphors. I am the dry and thirsty land." - Jamie Nakagawa Boley
Minnie Ekta Ooweh Come to the Water
A Stratum of What-ifs Still, I hear "Minne Ekta Ooweh, Come to the Water". (4’ x 8’ oil on diptych wood panels) was one of my earlier paintings that I had found myself in search of understanding as to how land and memory came into meaning. When my father died, I found myself seeking solace in the land where my eyes could find rest. I will never forget driving with the intent to see him one last time, being so overcome with sorrow that I was unable to speak. Looking out the car window, I looked out into the farmland and suddenly a field with blue-black soil, under gray skies caught my gaze. It was un-extraordinary and maybe to some mundane and forgettable, but to me it was the most beautiful thing. The skies were gray above an empty desolate field of deep blue-black soil with a small area of water running between it and wild brush growing alongside it. This painting (and my previous painting) found a way from that memory. I don’t really like how static and heavy it is and if not for the gap between the panels I would feel as if I could not breathe. And strangely, every time I look at this painting a deep longing and sorrow comes over me and so maybe I just don’t like what was caught in the pigment as a reminder of missed moments and life’s regrets.
Jamie Nakagawa Boley is a Japanese, Choctaw Native American Indian, painter, and writer whose time-based mixed-media land works delve into the investigation the hidden histories of the forgotten past. Her works are gestural in motion as she seems to search through marks that unveil loss and grief at the destruction, fragmentation, and degradation of both the environment and this current historical present. She holds a M.A. degree in Art and a B.A. in Art with a minor in Native American Studies from the California State University of Fresno and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a Dean’s Award recipient of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Graduate Dean’s Medalist and Outstanding Thesis Award from the California State University of Fresno. Jamie is a founding member of the Native American Inter-tribal Winyan Omnicha. She is adjunct faculty at the California State University of Fresno, teaching both studio art and visual art culture theory courses. She has also been teaching drawing courses, in addition to coordinating and curating for Clovis Community College AC1 Gallery for the 2022 academic year.
For more information on Boley's work, you may visit her website: https://www.jamienakagawaboley.net/
"In my work, I am breaking and shifting the horizon of a false reality. The idea behind these works is that I am the land. All my tears and fears are mixed into the paint. I am praying to God. Sometimes, I am broken in despair when I attempt to paint these paintings. I have no answers, no understanding. It’s all there, whether you like it or not. These paintings are allegories." - Jamie Nakagawa Boley
She that dwell in the secret place
Traver CA 36°24'11"N 119°27'31"W
We Are In Crisis from Dylan McLaughlin on Vimeo.
This guide was created by the CCC Librarians to support the Clovis Community College Gallery Exhibitions. It aims to provide students and the community with resources related to the exhibition themes and concepts on display. For questions, please contact Librarian Alicia Diaz Wrest at alicia.diaz-wrest@cloviscollege.edu.
