Kathy Andrew

"Forbidden Fruit”
Hand-colored silver-gelatin print

Ms. Andrew has found in photography a rich medium for artistic expression and the perfect synthesis of the prior experience. During a career in chemistry, she developed the ability to achieve technical excellence, while her background in music contributes a feel of rhythm, balance and dynamic to her work.
In the selected image, movement and light capture a moment of ordinary action, a sense of the fleeting and tenuous nature of life is conveyed, and we are connected with the fact that in the next moment this same congruence of action, place and person may be impossible.

Aaron McNamee

"Wanna Play”
Sculpture

Sculpture provides me with a wide variety of challenges. Rooted aesthetically and conceptually, these challenges never fail to intrigue me. Many of my works deal with social and economic issues that are not readily discussed in our society. By initiating these conversations, I hope to widen the viewers' awareness while intriguing their sensibilities.

Cory Peeke

"Color Me, Beautiful”
Mixed Installation
Honored Artist

Collage is the vehicle in which I explore social and cultural conceptions of identity. Through direct appropriation from a variety of sources, including health manuals, child rearing texts, how-to and vintage children’s coloring books as well as found photographs, I construct evocative and often humorous juxtapositions of text and image in order to illuminate our society's reactionary and often ridiculous relation to identity stereotypes.

Glennis Philipps

"13 Clay Figures"
Ceramic
Honored Artist

My work in clay is a powerful, spiritual antidote for loss of center. It has been a journey along the four levels of competence: 1) conscious incompetence, 2) unconscious incompetence, 3) conscious competence, and 4) unconscious competence with which I still struggle. I endeavor to approach my art with a sense of humor and a great love of the process of making art and of nature. My work is represented at Crossroads, Baker City; Pendleton Art Center; Carnegie Art Center and Blue Creek Gallery, both in Walla Walla, WA.

Jessica Plattner

"Greensleves"
Oil on canvas
Honored Artist

Jessica Plattner is a painter and Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. She earned an MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA, and a BFA from Washington University School of Art in St. Louis, MO.

Her current work combines contemporary and traditional oil painting materials and techniques, with diverse sources of imagery ranging from popular culture to art historical figures. These contradictory combinations mirror the postmodern patchwork of contemporary identity.

On a more personal level, they speak to the complexities of the artist’s own life as a traveler, teacher, woman, and artist.