Winter X Winter: Collaborative Exhibition at Bend Art Center

On display in January at the Bend Art Center is a collaborative, site-specific exhibit, guest curated by Bend artist Julie Winter. Entitled "Winter X Winter," the exhibit is inspired by people's connections to place. Winters invited 30 artists to respond to the theme of "home" on a common canvas of 30-inch-by-84-inch natural fiber handmade Asian paper—the result of a journey of meditation and insight into the idea of place and our relationship to it.

Teafly Peterson

Julie Winter asked local artists to contemplate the theme of "home" for the exhibition now up at Bend Art Center.

When you walk into the Bend Art Center, you'll see the individual pieces lined up next to each other. A middle horizon line connects them, as Winters asked each artist to split their canvas into two and examine the impact of darkness and light within their piece.

"My hope was that the physical structure of the paper provided to the artists and the visual parameters of light colors on top and dark colors on bottom, with a center meeting line— would read as a larger shared horizon line once installed together," shares Winter.

The effect works. As you walk through the space, you get the sense of a horizon guiding you. And because Winter asked the artists to limit their palette to less than 5 percent color, the exhibit feels cohesive, yet you can see a variety of viewpoints, experiences, outlooks and stories.

This type of collaborative experience was new to Winter, but one she was inspired to pursue as a result of her work receiving her Master of Fine Arts from Portland's Pacific Northwest College of Art last summer. While studying at PNCA, Winter became inspired by her own experimentation and was curious to see how other artists would respond when given the same parameters and theme. This collaboration was especially interesting because artists worked in isolation—yet created pieces that feel connected and create a much larger final piece when combined.

Ultimately, for Winter, being able to piece together these various voices served as a great reminder that "we all fit in wherever we're at."

Winter X Winter
On display through Sun., Jan. 27
Bend Art Center
550 SW Industrial Way, Bend
bendartcenter.org
Free admission