Chip Thomas, Messages from the Underworld

February 7–March 3, 2019
First Thursday opening reception: February 7, 6:00–9:00 PM

Panel Discussion and Screen Printing Event*
Saturday, February 9, 3:00 PM

Participants will include: Chip Thomas, Thea Gahr, Jesse Hazelip,  and Ryan Pinto, who will also perform a dance based in the grass dance tradition and hip-hop.
*visitors are welcome to bring a t-shirt or other item to screen print after the panel discussion

Blue Sky Gallery 
122 NW 8th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97209 USA
503-225-0210
Tuesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 pm
First Thursday 6 – 9 pm
bluesky@blueskygallery.org
http://www.blueskygallery.org/

In Messages from the Underworld, Chip Thomas brings together a diverse range of photo-based work, including wheat paste murals, installations, and screen prints, to focus on the many ways that the agricultural development of corn has shaped the land, people, and cultures of the Americas.

He observes, “when one thinks of what it means to be an American – whether it’s indigenous people praying with corn pollen, religious groups ingesting corn flakes to curb sexual desires, people with amputations and blindness from type II diabetes, farmers feeding corn to their livestock or Central Americans pursuing a safer and better life, we have to examine our relationship with the plant that identifies us as Pan-Americans.”

Chip Thomas, aka “jetsonorama,” is a native of North Carolina and a photographer, public artist, activist, and physician who has been working between Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon in the Navajo Nation since 1987. He coordinates the Painted Desert Project – a community building effort which manifests as a constellation of murals across the western Navajo Nation, painted by artists from all over the world. Thomas is a member of the Justseeds Artists Co-operative, an international cooperative of 30 socially engaged artists. His large-scale photographs can be seen pasted in the northern Arizona desert, on the graphics of the Peoples Climate March, the National Geographic Blog, 350.org, and the Huffington Post.