Patrick Rock

Patrick Rock

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Patrick Rock is the new incoming director of the Autzen & MK Galleries at Portland State University and the director of Rocksbox Fine Art on Interstate Avenue in North Portland. Rocksbox is an independently ran exhibition space and short-term artist in residence program committed to the promotion and support of contemporary artists and thier work. Patrick is also a co-founding member of ROCKSBOOKS Leipzig/Portland, an artist ran publishing collaborative dedicated to the production of individual artists self-designed catalogs. Patrick has exhibited his sculpture, installation, performance, and video work internationally, most recently with gallery Laden Fuer Nichts in Leipzig, Germany, and Queen's Nails Annex in San Francisco, California. He possesses an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute where he was employed before returning to Portland. Patrick is a native born Oregonian whose initial art exposure was an awestruck child standing in front of the Rasmussen Collection of Pacific Northwest Native American art at the Portland Art Museum, which acted as surrogate and babysitter while his mother was completing her masters degree in teaching at PSU in the early 1970's.

Ashley Neese

Ashley Neese

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Ashley Neese is an interdisciplinary artist and publisher. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. Her projects and interventions have been exhibited and executed across the US and Canada. In 2008 she began hosting a non-denominational mediation group in her apartment and founded AFY, a publishing company that specializes in small runs of contemporary art books. Currently she is working on several social projects around the concept of healing and discussing publication plans with selected artists.

Born 1980 Beloit, Wisconsin. Lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Shelby Davis

Shelby Davis

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Shelby Davis received an MFA degree from Portland State University in 2008. He is a sculptor and multimedia artist from small town South Carolina, Pickens more specifically. He has shown with a variety of venues in the Southeast and Northwest including Redux Contemporary Art Center, The North Carolina Public Arts Commission , Jace Gace, Disjecta, and most recently for the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art as part of a collaborative effort called Paintallica. He also has pieces all over his parent's property. His outdoor sculptural installations are often based off dissecting photographic information or rearanging recycled stuff. Some are installed without permission. He is a practiced wood and metal worker but often welcomes challenges that come with new materials. He now resides in Portland, OR and is showing wherever possible selectively.

Kristan Kennedy

Kristan Kennedy

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Kristan Kennedy is the current Visual Art Program Director at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), who maintain a full spectrum of contemporary arts programming, including the internationally recognized Time Based Arts Festival. Kennedy moved to Portland the year PICA was born. Her career as an artist and an arts advocate has been informed and fueled in part by PICA’s programming and impact the organization has had on Portland’s burgeoning arts community. She started at PICA as a volunteer and joined the Board of Trustees in 2002, before transitioning onto the staff in 2003, where she was responsible for managing Press and Public Relations and marketing campaigns for the organization. In Summer 2005, Kennedy moved positions to manage the Visual Program.

Kennedy is a graduate of the New York State College of Art and Design at Alfred University, and is an exhibiting artist represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon. She is also co-founder of the artist collective Swallow Press (x2), whose printed ephemera and public art projects have been exhibited in PICA’s 1999 exhibit, CounterCanvas and internationally. Swallow Press (x2) projects have been published in Émigré, I-D Magazine, and Surface, and Swallow Press (x2) Printed Matter is in the special collections of Dartmouth College, the New York State Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Kennedy’s own work was included in the 2006 and 1999 Biennials at the Portland Art Museum, and she has lectured at Oregon State University, Portland State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art, and her own alma mater. She is the former Board Chair of the Independent Publishing Resource Center, where she presently serves on their advisory board, and is also a former member of the Tri-Met Public Art Advisory Committee.

Jenene Nagy

Jenene Nagy

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Jenene Nagy is an artist and curator residing in Portland, OR. She received her MFA from the University of Oregon in 2004. Since then, Nagy has been exhibiting her work all over Portland and the world including projects for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, the PDX Window Project, Linfield Art Gallery, Art Gym at Marylhurst University, and Portland Art Museum's Apex exhibition series. Nagy has also distinguished herself as one half of the curatorial duo that is Tilt Gallery and Project Space, which recently ended a two and a half year run at the Everett Street Lofts. Nagy's work will soon be featured in an upcoming edition of New American Paintings.