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Pamela Chipman and Jan Cook, Afraid/Not Afraid
February 17, 2024 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Pamela Chipman and Jan Cook, Afraid/Not Afraid
February 7- April 25th 2024
Artist Reception February 17th 2 – 5PM Performance by Lyra Butler-Denman: 3 – 4PM
Artist Talk (In-Person): April 18th 2PM
Viewing hours: Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m
Archer Gallery, Clark College
1933 Fort Vancouver Way
Vancouver, WA 98663
Afraid/Not Afraid examines how women live with an ever-present threat of violence and the feeling of being unsafe in their world. Gender violence, sexual stereotypes, and the portrayal of women in the media and popular culture feed and perpetuate this fear in our society. This collaborative photo-based installation explores vulnerability and the artist’s relationship to it as women. The work looks at the emotional side of this subject and how these forces shape the lives and behavior of women, often in subtle ways, that become ingrained and normalized as part of their worldview.
In this immersive installation, the viewer becomes the voyeur, peeping through an exterior window of a house before entering the space. The exhibition combines projected images, large photographic fabric panels and sound. The images reflect the relationship between being watched and objectified and how women present their identities to the world. The photographs and projections on semi-transparent layers combine and interplay as the viewer moves through the piece, building an intimate space for reflection.
The artists Jan Cook and Pamela Chipman created this installation together in an artist residency in Portland, OR. They are white cisgender women whose own experiences and concerns with safety and consent propelled them to make this body of work. In confronting this underlying fear, they want to call attention to and to create discussion and change around these issues.
Jan Cook is a Seattle artist who works with photo-based imagery to examine the ideas that run through our collective unconscious and tie us together in our humanity. Pamela Chipman is a Portland, Oregon based visual artist who explores themes of memory, domesticity and femininity. She creates work that speaks to the history, strengths and struggles of women in our culture.
“This work is hauntingly beautiful. I find it especially powerful to experience and contemplate in this moment, after #MeToo was supposed to have changed things yet we find misogyny and violence and threats of unsafety linger and linger.”
– Author Lois Leveen, PhD
About the Archer Gallery and Clark Art Talks
Archer Gallery serves the students and community of Clark College by exhibiting contemporary art in a not-for-profit educational setting. Archer Gallery exhibits work by nationally and internationally renowned artists and connects the Clark College community with accessible and diverse perspectives from the contemporary art world.
Clark Art Talks serves the students and community of Clark College by hosting a monthly art lecture series. Distinguished artists and art scholars from around the country share their experiences related to their art practices and provide unique insights into their varied career paths and artistic techniques. For more information about our exhibitions and art talks visit archergallery.space
https://afraidnotafraid.com/