Catherine Haley Epstein, My Nose Made Me Do It

February 1st – March 29, 2019
Opening Reception: February 1st from 6-8pm.

Pushdot Studio
2505 SE 11th Avenue, Suite 104
Suite 104 – in the Ford Building, enter on Division Street
Portland, OR 97202
Mon-Fri. 8:30am to 5:00pm, free admission

Catherine Haley Epstein is an award-winning writer, artist, designer and curator. Over the past eight years she has pioneered the incorporation of scent into her visual and conceptual art practice. The effect has been an entirely new and more abstract dynamic to her work.

Mixing scent requires chance, knowledge and courage. In this installation, “My Nose Made Me Do It,” the artist has combined visuals with which she has been obsessed for over twenty years in the same manner she has combined scent materials – with love, patience and curiosity. The installation is a weaving of philosophy, art history and multimedia where scent, visuals, text and sculpture become distilled tales of her nose journey to date.

Most recently Catherine attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont, and spoke at the Society of Illustrators in New York on her writing and scent practice. She is a multimedia artist and has recently done educational programming around scent at the Portland Art Museum, and with Public Annex, who serves community artists with disabilities. In 2016 she was selected to exhibit her experimental fragrance project at the inaugural AIX Scent Fair at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She is the recipient of the 2017 Perfumed Plume Award in Fragrance Journalism, for her writing on the use of scent as an art medium, and has served on the panel for Visual Artist grants for the National Endowment for the Arts.

You may find Catherine’s portfolio at catherinehaleyepstein.com and her essays at www.mindmarrow.com (instagram/twitter @mindmarrow).