After trampling in the muddy rice fields of rural Vietnam then wandering supermarket aisles in the United States, Millian Pham received her BFA in painting and printmaking from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and her MFA in sculpture from the University of Florida. Currently based in Alabama, teaching in the College of Arts at Auburn University, we are overjoyed to have Millian’s body of work, Double Vision here at the Reese Bullen Gallery. 

Artist and Educator Pham’s art practice uses personal and cultural signifiers of her native Vietnam and adopted America in the mediums of painting, printmaking, and installation. Pham states, “My art making is code switching. Each work experiments with the aesthetic codes and conceptual framework of multiple cultures, art mediums, and languages. I test out new ways to convey an idea through a pluralism of perspective by switching visual codes through juxtaposition and obfuscation.”

In a series of 8 new tapestries that are over 10 feet tall, creating a series of dividers in the Gallery space, Pham utilizes “ images and texts from my native Vietnamese with adopted American cultures using lustrous paint and other aesthetic references to lacquer art. I’m interested in highly abstracting these words to the point of near illegibility, hiding phrases, and presenting them as ambiguous visual puzzles. “ 

Millian Giang Pham will be in humboldt for a 2 day engagement with students and classes here at the Art + Film Department at Cal Poly Humboldt. With workshops for students, as well as a public Artist Talk Thursday September 26th at 5pm, at ArtB 101 across from the Reese Bullen Gallery during the Opening Reception. 

The exhibition Double Vision will run from September 19th through October 18th at the Reese Bullen Gallery. We will hold an Opening Reception and Artist Talk with Pham on Thursday September 26th from 4:30pm-6:30pm at the Reese Bullen Gallery, with light refreshments; and the Artist Talk starting at 5pm in the Lecture Hall, ArtB 101.

If you encounter issues accessing or navigating the Matterport website or any of the virtual tours of the exhibits at Reese Bullen Gallery or any of the Galleries on this website, please call 707-826-3629 or email rbg@humboldt.edu for assistance during normal business hours, 8-5 Monday through Friday.

If you encounter issues accessing or navigating the Matterport website or any of the virtual tours of the exhibits at Reese Bullen Gallery or any of the Galleries on this website, please call 707-826-3629 or email rbg@humboldt.edu for assistance during normal business hours, 8-5 Monday through Friday.

Ciara Craig
Spin, 2020, Acrylic on masonite
Record Cells, 2020, Acrylic on masonite

Karissa Haff
Jovi Guzman, 2020, Photograph
Jay Versace, 2020, Photograph

Lisa Heikka-Huber
Blue Face, 2021, Resin & glass
Untitled, 2021, Resin

Caitlyn McVey
Comfort in the Unexplained, 2020, Acrylic gouache on paper
Jerry Vamp, 2020, Acrylic gouache on paper

Alyssa Ravenwood
Prism, 2018, Watercolor and Ink
Kathryn, 2019/20, Ceramic, acrylic ink and paint

Rebecca Suen
Untitled Vase, 2019, Hand-built ceramics
Dragon on Vessels, 2020, Woodcut print

Oregon-based Artist Emily Jung Miller created an ongoing series of community interactive traveling installations transforming locally gathered marine debris into art. Using materials gathered from cleanups around the beaches and waterways here on the North Coast, as well as diverted waste from the fishing industry, a large scale artwork will be made with the debris. Ghost Net Landscape evolves with each presentation, transforming to fit the needs of the space, time, and community where it is exhibited. Join our Humboldt community in making a public work of art out of the marine debris depicting local marine life.

Emily Miller will be in residence for a week of engagement visiting the campus and the community around Humboldt Bay and the region. She will be at the Reese Bullen Gallery on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus from 10am-4pm from Monday September 11th through Friday September 15th. All are welcome to join us in creating artworks out of the collected marine and waterway debris. The project's mission is to create space where positive transformation is a natural and joyful response.

The exhibition Ghost Net Landscape Humboldt will run from September 11th through October 14th at the Reese Bullen Gallery. We will hold an Opening Reception and Artist Talk with Miller on Wednesday September 13th from 4:30pm-6pm at the Reese Bullen Gallery, with light refreshments.

The gallery is located in the Cal Poly Humboldt Art Building, at the intersection of B Street and Laurel Drive, directly across from the Van Duzer Theatre. The gallery is open Wednesday/Thursday 12pm-6pm, Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday 11am-2pm. Closed Sunday-Tuesday. Also open via appointment, please contact the Gallery Director at rbg@humboldt.edu, or call 707-826-5818. Admission is free and all are welcome. For parking information, please visit humboldt.edu/parking.

More information on Ghost Net Landscape project: https://www.ejmillerfineart.com/ghost-net

The Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery on the Humboldt State University campus was founded in the Spring of 2011. But it’s inception was decades in the making, originally set as a museum space in a part of a master plan of the 1980s, the goal was to highlight creative expressions from our local Indigenous communities and nations. In the decade following its founding in 2011, the Goudi’ni Gallery has showcased local foundational and emerging Native artists, and State and Nationally known Indigenous artists. 

The Goudi’ni Gallery mission is to honor living culture through the presentation of contemporary and traditional Native American art. This respectful learning space builds campus, Tribal and community connections by promoting diverse artistic perspectives. Inspired by the Wiyot word Goudi’ni, translated as “one is way up and one looks back,” we acknowledge the long history of this place by sharing the stories of past, present and future generations.

Selected exhibitions were shown on the Arcata Ballpark Fence, F street between 8th/9th Arcata, as a part of Art On The Fence, showing the diversity of expression and creative endeavor that the Goudi’ni Gallery has had the pleasure of bringing to the North Coast. Featuring the work of past exhibiting artists: 

Tiffany Adams
Duggan Aguilar
Carl Avery Jr.
Natalie Ball
Rick Bartow
George Blake
Annelia Hillman
Geri Montano
Lyn Risling
Fox Anthony Spears
Gail Tremblay
Brian Tripp

What are the secret gems of art by Indigenous artists in your home? What are works that make you think of Home? What have you brought Home?

These are questions that have brought works to this exhibition, join us in celebration of Home

Opening Reception: Thurs Oct 17th, 4:30-6pm, Goudi'ni Gallery

Exhibition Tour: Fri Oct 18th, 3pm-4pm, Goudi'ni Gallery

Last week! Galleries open: Tues/Wed 11am-5pm, Thurs/Fri 12pm-6pm and Sat 11am-3pm

Click the image below to view a recording of the Julia Bradshaw virtual Artist Talk, originally live 03/02/22

The Reese Bullen Gallery presents two bodies of work by artist Julia Bradshaw, Stacks and Shapes and Survey.

Stacks and Shapes:

Julia Bradshaw treats photographs as malleable two-dimensional material, creating topographical landscapes and geometric shapes from source-photographs that refer to the fore-edges and top-edges of paperback books. Although outwardly referencing books, the photographs probe the histories, properties and technologies of photography such as the translation of colour photography into black and white. She also uses her photographs of paper-back books as material for endless experimentation. In so doing, she creates an infinite variety of forms and shapes that refer to the original photographed object but evoke a different sensibility: segmented geometrical forms reference her interest in the roots of minimalist abstraction whereas horizontal stacks of books are combined to suggest gently rolling topographical landscapes. In making the work, Bradshaw utilizes a variety of photographic techniques, from historical darkroom techniques to current computer-based photographic imaging.

Survey:

 In examining historical and contemporary astrophotography, I note the aesthetics of the scientific annotations; such as the alphanumeric designations, the mythological proper names of the bright stars, and the descriptions of the image-content. In historic texts, I also note the speculative scientific theories and the florid language of Victorian to mid-century scientific exploration. Formally, I am interested in the indexical information: the fiducial markers, the handwritten observations, the image-joinery, and the overabundance of arrows. I note incursions into the visual picture-frame by the mechanics of the space-ships and that in a stitched-together images (known as photo-mosaics) all photographic data is retained.

Even though I use the aesthetics of scientific images to inform this project, all the artwork in the series ‘Survey’ is created using silver-gelatin photographic processes and rudimentary tools. I use a cardboard box for a camera, and images are manipulated with knives, inks, joins, dyes, and reversals. The simplicity of the materials is a subtle poke at the vast gap between investment in science and investment in art. And by pointing my camera at the most abundant of materials, I aim to empower imagination in conjunction with science

Both space-scientists and artists produce visual material; but one requires extraordinary investment for cosmic explorations, the other explores the extraordinary richness of inner head-space. To a certain extent I see myself as an explorer of my imagination; creating my own maps, diagrams, and places to discover. My intent is to make observations about scientific images and scientific annotations and to create delightful confusion through wit. Thus, I acknowledge the complicated relationship between photography and reality; and the slippage of scientific speculation between reality and conjecture.

More information at juliabradshaw.com

If you encounter issues accessing or navigating the Matterport website or any of the virtual tours of the exhibits at Reese Bullen Gallery or any of the Galleries on this website, please call 707-826-3629 or email rbg@humboldt.edu for assistance during normal business hours, 8-5 Monday through Friday.

Ka'ila Farrell-Smith is a contemporary Klamath Modoc visual artist, writer and activist based in Modoc Point, Oregon. Focusing on a series of Land Back paintings created in her Modoc Point studio, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith utilizes wild harvested pigments from Klamath lands, aerosol stencils of metal detritus found on the ranch land of the studio. Combined, these marks with harvested wild pigments constitute layers that bridge contemplation of colonizers violence and trauma, offering a matrix for resiliency and transformation of perception and memory. Formally, the works examine improvisational composition and abstract exploration, additional layers of thicker paint utilize text and imagery cited from the artist’s research.

Gallery opens with regular hours Friday March 24th.

Gallery open hours are Wed/Thurs 12pm-6pm, Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-2pm. Closed Sun/Mon/Tues.  Also open via appointment, please contact the Gallery Director at rbg@humboldt.edu, or call 707-826-3629.

If you encounter issues accessing or navigating the Matterport website or any of the virtual tours of the exhibits at Reese Bullen Gallery or any of the Galleries on this website, please call 707-826-3629 or email rbg@humboldt.edu for assistance during normal business hours, 8-5 Monday through Friday.

Liminal bodies and space showcases two artist's distinct but echoed personal experiences as newcomers to the U.S., illuminating the resulting transformation of their identities, in the physical, and virtual worlds. Featuring the creative work of new media artists Linh Dao and Amanda Stojanov, this exhibition emerges as a response to an elusive sense of belonging in America as others or foreigners. Their works explore the ongoing tension and fluidity within both personal and societal concepts of identity. They share their experience of femme and otherwise marked bodies as they adjust to the process of assimilation and the erosion of their languages, history, and cultures. New technologies are used in conjunction with expressive typography to interrogate marginalized realities, including augmented reality, virtual reality, projections, performance, and interactive experiences. 

In this exhibition, two pieces feature the works of dear friends and collaborators of the principal artists and designers. Living Disruption is a collaboration with Suzan Globus. Amorphous includes significant contributions from Elise Coatney and Chenin Rowe.

Linh Dao + Amanda Stojanov

Lora Webb Nichols, Charles, Mary Jane and Patricia McDonald, 1930

Curated by Nicole Jean Hill

February 15th-March 16th, 2024

Event: 

Curator Talk with Nicole Jean Hill, Wednesday March 6th, 5pm-6pm ArtB 102 (Lecture Hall across from Reese Bullen Gallery.

Nicole will discuss Lora Webb Nichols biography as well as how she and her 24,000 archive of negatives fit into broader Photographic history.

More information on Lora Webb Nichols: https://www.lorawebbnichols.org/learn-more 

More Than a Number: Art From Participants in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Prison Arts Collective Chapter at Pelican Bay State Prison

The Reese Bullen Gallery hosted an Artist Talk with the artists at Pelican Bay State Prison on Thursday February 23rd from 2:30-3:30pm. We will be sharing the talk recording by March 6th, with a link available here.

More Than A Number features more than a dozen artists from Pelican Bay State Prison located in Crescent City CA.  showcased at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Reese Bullen Gallery. The exhibit will run from February 16 to March 11, 2023. The public is invited to visit the gallery during open hours, or by appointment. The exhibition features paintings, papercraft, crochet, beadwork, drawings, and carvings. The gallery also hosts large prints of the murals inside the yard at Pelican Bay State Prison, a chance to see more artwork most will not get to see.

Since Spring of 2021, faculty and staff of the Art Department at Cal Poly Humboldt have worked to develop and maintain a chapter of the Prison Arts Collective (PAC) to offer arts instruction and material support for artmaking at Pelican Bay State Prison. The Prison Arts Collective, a statewide pairing of California State University Art Departments and state prisons, begun in 2013, operates through a belief in art as an inalienable human right. Our institutional partnerships are designed to foster creative self expression in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, such that people who are experiencing incarceration can have access to the transformative power of making and exhibiting art. Over the course of this show,  we have the shared opportunity to showcase the creative endeavors of (PAC) participants at Pelican Bay, bringing their creations outside of that space to a broader audience.

The Reese Bullen Gallery can be found on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus in the Art Building, near the corner of Laurel Drive and B St. in Arcata. The gallery is open Wed/Thurs 12pm-6pm, Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-2pm. Closed Sun/Mon/Tues. Also open via appointment, please contact the Gallery Director at rbg@humboldt.edu, or call (707) 826-3629. Admission is free. Parking information is available at parking.humboldt.edu or (707) 826-3773.

More information on Prison Arts Collective and how to support their efforts at www.prisonartscollective.com/

If you encounter issues accessing or navigating the Matterport website or any of the virtual tours of the exhibits at Reese Bullen Gallery or any of the Galleries on this website, please call 707-826-3629 or email rbg@humboldt.edu for assistance during normal business hours, 8-5 Monday through Friday.