Matt McCormick

Matt McCormick

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Matt McCormick is an artist, film-maker, photographer and musician who has produced several well received projects in recent years. His films defy genre distinctions and fashion witty, abstract observations of contemporary culture and the urban landscape. Matt's work has been exhibited in film festivals, art museums, and micro-cinemas around the globe. Some films of note include Sincerely Joe P. Bear, American Nutria, The Problem with Machines (that communicate), and the Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal. A collection of Matt's music and sound recordings titled Very Stereo was released in 2007 by Marriage Records, and his photography and installation work is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Matt is also the founder of the internationally recognized video distribution label Peripheral Produce, and is the founder and executive director of the Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, Portland's premiere event for experimental, documentary, and otherwise obscure contemporary cinema.

Buster Simpson

Buster Simpson

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Buster Simpson is widely known as an environmental artist, making outdoor sculpture and public art that involve its environment as well as its viewers. Simpson has worked on major infrastructure projects, site master planning, signature sculptures, museum installations, and community projects. Some of these include a light rail bridge collaborative over the Salt River in Phoenix and art master plans for urban centers and watersheds that integrate community, ecology, and art.

Andrea Zittel

Andrea Zittel

(listen)

Internationally acclaimed Andrea Zittel develops hand-crafted furniture, homes and vehicles for contemporary consumers, in response to human rhythms and the creative need of people to match their surroundings to the changing appearance of life. Recently Zittel's institute, known as "A-Z Enterprise," has been acting as host to The High Desert Test Sites, a series of experimental art sites located along a stretch of desert communities in Southern California, which will provide alternative space for experimental works by both emerging and established artists in connection with the California Biennial in November, 2008. She received a BFA in painting and sculpture in 1988 from San Diego State University, and an MFA in sculpture in 1990 from the Rhode Island School of Design.

(please enjoy this archive of Zittel's lecture at Portland State University)

Avalon Kalin

Avalon Kalin

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Avalon Kalin is a Portland based artist who explores consciousness and relationships in social contexts. Avalon has created interdisciplinary projects that often involve collaboration with individuals and groups. These include the 2001 film The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal, Open Reading Room, The Power of Fliers, Drumset Drumcircle, and most recently Breakthough in conjunction with the 2008 Portland Institute for the Arts Time Based Arts Festival. He is currently a graduate student of fine arts with an emphasis in social practice at Portland State University.

(this special edition of Art Talk AM, aired Monday October 6th)

Mack McFarland

Mack McFarland

(listen)

[Interview conducted by Cyrus Smith]

Mack McFarland is an interdisciplinary artist who splits his time between his home in Portland, Oregon and the 11th dimension. He works in many mediums, with a particular focus on video and drawing. Characterized by humor, mysticism, chance, repetition, and the multi-sensory, his work invites the viewer to experience the intersection of the aesthetic and the cognitive. McFarland has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2006, he created a work for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts’ Time-Based Art Festival, and recently finished a three month long project for the Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, which Sheila Farr of the Seattle Times called “startling, nutty, and technologically relevant.” His future projects include a installation at the Art Gym at Marylhurst University and a major curatorial project at the Feldman Gallery. He is the recipient of the William H. Givler Thesis Award in Fine Arts and the winner of the Charles Voorhies Drawing Competition.