Windowfront Exhibitions

Asian/American Contemporary Women

Artists: Mei-Ling Lee, Sandy Honda, Mika Aono, Helen Liu and Kum Ja Lee.

Location: 224 W. Broadway

Mei-Ling Lee

Trilogy: The Lighted Windows, The Ocean thief, The Beautiful Feather | Projected video

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Location: 224 W. Broadway

Credits: Composer/Sound designer: Mei-Ling Lee, Story & Video: Jefferson Goolsby, Voice Talent: The Lighted Windows: Jayshing Goolsby/Jefferson Goolsby, The Ocean Thief: Jayling Goolsby/Jefferson Goolsby, The Beautiful Feather: Jayling Goolsby/Jefferson Goolsby

About the art:

• The Lighted Windows (10 min) - Unhappy at home, a young girl escapes to walk her neighborhood streets at night and wonder about the different possible lives being lived behind the lighted windows. The lighted windows are about longing, imagining and considering life’s options. 
• The Ocean Thief (11 min) - The story of a young girl whose beach-written story is stolen by the ocean, and her struggle to get it back. Filmed in Oregon, the story explores the plight of the artist’s voice in a sea of voices, using metaphor to examine creativity, ancestry, mortality and time.
• The Beautiful Feather (11 min) - A young girl tells fantastical stories of experiences and adventures that may or may not be true, to the frustration of her village. Touching on themes of independence and personal voice, “The Beautiful Feather” weaves sonic motifs into a message about the power of one’s own story.

About the artist: Taiwanese-born composer Dr. Mei-Ling Lee’s work integrates contemporary western music with traditional Chinese culture. She regularly draws inspiration from Western and Chinese poetry. In her free time, Mei-Ling loves to spend time with her family watching movies, cooking, traveling and reading. Dr. Lee is currently Adjunct Faculty at Oregon State University and Lane Community College. Examples of Lee's work

Sandra Honda

Why Hate? Why Not Love? | Mixed media installation

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Location: 224 W. Broadway

About the art: I wrote the poem, “The Shove,” in 2019. I was just beginning my journey into my identity work when the very real memory depicted in this poem surfaced. In my child’s mind, I knew what happened in that 1960s grocery store was about being seen by others as Asian. In this artwork, I bury the poem in black tags symbolizing the government-issued identification tags worn by men, women and children of Japanese ancestry who were being transported to “relocation centers” during World War II, where they would be incarcerated for up to 4½ years.

Fast forward two years: we have been catapulted into the COVID pandemic, a time when an alarming surge in violent and virulent Asian hate incidents emerged. From March 2020 through December 2021 there were nearly 11,000 hate incidents reported by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. These hate incidents are still taking place today.

I created this installation to help connect the dots between the “minor feelings” Asians are often confronted with in everyday life, like the one I experienced as a child, and the Asian hate incidents of today and yesterday. The distance between them is not very far at all, when the history of Asian America is considered. This work asks viewers to consider, “Why Hate? Why Not Love?” Such simple questions, but sometimes difficult to reconcile.

About the artist: I am a visual artist and writer who lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. I am also Japanese American. In my drawings, paintings, photographs, assemblages and installations, I interrogate what it means to be Asian and American in today’s America. Today is a reflection of the past and a lesson toward the future. In the past, Japanese Americans, including my grandparents and US-born parents, were subjected to the trauma of ethnically based incarceration during World War II. Growing up, it was important to my parents and grandparents and to the US government for me to fit seamlessly into my school, my neighborhood and eventually my marriage and professional life. In the process, the Japanese part of my identity faded though deeply cherished. Through art, I work to reclaim my identity, excavating and rebuilding self while excavating and rebuilding layers of ink on paper drawings. I dig and tear into paper, always in a back-and-forth conversation between that which is random and that which is intentional. These works very often begin with poetry I write.

But my work is not just about me; it is about an urgency for our future. We sit at this critical juncture when we must not look away from systemic racism, and a time when we must move toward true democracy and not away from it. By continuing to raise my voice through my art, I raise the voices of my Asian brothers and sisters in our fight to be seen and treated as Americans who are indeed “created equal.” I do my art to build understandings of the past as present and future. My hope is that these understandings in some small way help us make better choices going forward. sandrahondaart.com, instagram.com/sandrahondaart

Mika Aono

Continuum | Etching, relief, letterpress on Unryu paper

Continuum II | Handmade paper, thread

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Location: 224 W. Broadway

About the art: Every time I see a rusty nail on the ground, I put it in my pocket. I dream of what it was before and what it might become, and I remember them. To "remember" is to put back together, to make whole. I feel kinship to broken, cast-aside things. I want to find a meaning in the meaningless. The compulsion to collect detritus seems a pointless gesture, yet it is precisely this odd behavior that reveals whom we are. I explore the humanness of absurdity and futility, finding value in unfulfilled wishes. I cherish a process of making that invites fantasy of what could be. With my idiosyncratic actions I genuinely pay attention to my surroundings.

As a woman and resident alien in the US, I often think about what it means to go across geographical and emotional borders. How do we draw the line between adjacent matters? Would I succumb to the expectations to belong somewhere? No. I know, however, that I will forever be wishing to belong somewhere. I embrace contradiction, parodying my own identity as one who doesn't fit into a category. In everchanging, shifting landscapes, I am seeking a way to exist with the present in equilibrium.

About the artist: Mika Aono is a multidisciplinary artist and one of the founding members of the non-profit Eugene Printmakers. Her recent work explores humanness in absurdity and futility through laborious processes. Her fascination for nature has driven her projects and installations, utilizing found objects and various printmaking techniques. She cherishes serendipitous moments and believes art has a power to connect all living things. She wishes she were a gentle superhero.

Mika was born in Sendai, Japan and received a Bachelor of education in Primary and Special Ed from Miyagi University of Education in Japan, a Bachelors of Art from University of Oregon, and a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from San Francisco Art Institute. Currently, she works as an instructor and a printmaking/letterpress studio technician in the Department of Art at the University of Oregon. Her work has been shown at galleries including Northwest Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museum, Asheville Bookworks, Manhattan Graphics Center and in international exhibitions in India, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil and Canada; some are in museums and public collections. mikaboyd.com, instagram.com/mika.aono

Helen Liu

Yellow Sun Fragrance (Where's Waldo, Asian Edition) | Waste plastic bags from (mostly) food packaging, Chinese ink on rice paper, sewing thread, nails mounted on board

Study in Black | Waste plastic bags, sewing thread, tape

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Location: 224 W. Broadway

About the art: Helen Liu has been using waste plastic bags for the last 8 years in her artwork. Among her larger works are “American Luminosity” (20ftx10ft, 2014), created as a backdrop for a recital at UO Beall Hall, and “Plastic Waste to Art Quilt--We Are in This Together” (40ftx12ft), created for Earth Day 2021 and displayed at the Academy of Arts and Academics in downtown Springfield. This smaller work is made primarily from repurposed food packaging from Helen's own household consumption of Asian foods. With her Chinese calligraphy practice papers and ink paintings, all materials are collaged together in an Asian "Where's Waldo," who is (hint) wearing shorts and cooking a bowl of noodles.

About the artist: Helen was born in Taiwan and has lived in Eugene since 1977, except for six years in Portland, during which time she studied at PNCA and received her Bachelor of Fine Art in 1984. Helen is coauthor with Professor Ellen Johnston Laing on “Up in Flames: the Ephemeral Art of Pasted-Paper Sculpture in Taiwan,” a work based on Helen’s Master of Art thesis and published by Stanford University Press in 2004. helenliuartwork.com

Kum Ja Lee

Nostalgia | Felting wool, felt painting

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Location: 224 W. Broadway

About the art: After leaving Korea for many years and having to quarantine myself due to the COVID pandemic, memories of my childhood came closer to me as objects of longing. For my work, I try to disassemble the elements of these traces from my past into new forms so that I can recreate and express this nostalgic beauty from the past and into the present.

My work explores the mystical relationship between time and its traces in nature and life. It reflects the memory from my childhood in Korea when I discovered a cave near my house with engraving of old letters, signs and patterns. The cave was a place where time seemed to stop for me in my youth and a special memory I wanted to express through my art.

The piece investigates the possibilities of an abstract language of form and the materiality of painting with its relationship with fibers. I developed my own felting technique by using felting wool and iron pressing with repeated layering. I call this technique “felt painting,” which creates a pastel-like texture and image. My methods and processes reveal internal and external landscapes from the past with embedded emotions.

About the artist: Kum Ja Lee, originally from Seoul, South Korea is a visual artist based in Eugene, Oregon. She works with fiber art, installation and different painting media. Her recent work incorporates tradition with the contemporary, exploring the mystical relationship between cultural traces and time passage. She holds a Master of Fine Art in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, a Bachelor of Art from University of Oregon in Eugene and a Bachelor of Fine Art and Master of Fine Art in Fiber Arts at Hongik University, South Korea. She worked as an art instructor for undergraduate and graduate programs at Kangnung National University and Mokwon University, both in South Korea. Email Kum Ja Lee

Windowfront Paintings

Urban Canvas artists bring color and vibrancy to windowfronts.

Pattrick Price

A Sunset Together

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Presented by: Urban Canvas

Location: 1059 Willamette Street

About the art: This mural was created using traditional formline designs and ancient petroglyph styles. The sunset background and ridgeline of trees provide a comforting embrace that encourages people to be together and welcomes travelers to the community.

About the artist: Pattrick Price is an Alaskan born artist following multiple generations of Tlingit totemic style artists. In combination with the oldest styles of art from North America, Pattrick’s form line mixed with modern graffiti backgrounds creates murals that are unique to the Pacific Northwest. Pattrick is the current resident artist for the Ritz sauna in the Oregon Country Fair, with work on two beams that are a total of 35’, a 4’×5’ door, a 6’×8’ interactive art piece, and a 6’×18’ proscenium arch over the stage. He has also completed murals at Peterson Barn and Tracktown Studios in Eugene as well as live paintings for Artistic Encounters, Wow Hall and Sessions Lounge. Pattrick is currently in the process of making a line of printed hats for a local hat company in Eugene. instagram.com/pattrickprice

Valentina Gonzalez (VRGNZ)

Celestial Migration

Dates displayed: July 1-November 13, 2022

Presented by: Urban Canvas

Location: 120 W. Broadway

About the art: In my work I often play with concepts of social constructs. This piece is about the illusion of borders and separateness. This Summer, Eugene will be host to the World Athletic Championships. Around 2,000 athletes representing more than 200 countries will travel to Eugene to compete. Recognizing the juxtaposition between an event that welcomes the world and the current global displacement and migration crisis, I was inspired to paint a creation story using the archetypes of the Jaguar and the Coyote. The Jaguar is the protector and visionary embodying masculine and feminine desire. The Coyote brings the cunningness and creativity of the wise fool. These combined energies ignite to form the first stages of a new world. This piece demonstrates our innate capacity to use differences as creative fuel instead of destructive force.

About the artist: Valentina Gonzalez (VRGNZ) is interested in creating, exhibiting and promoting artwork that challenges social norms, builds community through art and activism and empowers others to share their stories through their own creative lens. Valentina is focused on non-profit art education, mural painting and community outreach.

“I began painting on walls throughout the Southwest and Texas in 1997. Over the years, I've worked with many art organizations, businesses and clients providing graphic design, art direction and murals. My experience includes a staff position as a Program Coordinator at Warehouse 21 Teen Art Center, a substitute Photoshop instructor at the Santa Fe Community College and a founder of the Whiteaker Community Art Team. My experience as an artist began with painting on walls and turned into an insatiable curiosity for creating art with all the tools available to me, from digital to analog, and my process continues to evolve. In the fall of 2017, I was honored to be included in the Santa Fe Indian Market with the Broken Boxes Exhibit at Form and Concept Gallery.”

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