PENDLETON — Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA) is welcoming Ka’ila Farrell-Smith to the studio from October 21-November 2. Farrell-Smith is a recipient of a 2018 Golden Spot Residency Award at Crow’s Shadow. This Artist-in-Residence award allows Oregon-based contemporary artists invited to the studio to work in a new medium; it is generously supported by The Ford Family Foundation.
Ka’ila Farrell-Smith (Klamath Modoc) is a painter and mixed-media artist based in Modoc Point, Oregon. Her work engages with inter-tribal native communities, reflecting the mixed and sometimes complicated heritage of multi-ethnic and indigenous families living in a post-colonial world. Her paintings and installations are deeply symbolic and frequently abstract, employing dynamic mark-making and textural explorations. Farrell-Smith is one of the directors of the Signal Fire artist residency program, and is a professor of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. Farrell-Smith has attended artist residencies at Caldera, Djerassi, Ucross, and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) among others. Farrell-Smith holds a BFA in Painting from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and an MFA in Contemporary Art Practices Studio from Portland State University. This is her first residency at Crow’s Shadow.
Farrell-Smith will work at Crow’s Shadow developing limited-edition prints, which will be hand pulled by Crow’s Shadow’s collaborative Master Printer, Judith Baumann. Most artists-in-residence at CSIA create two images for editioning, which is typically completed in the following months. Crow’s Shadow Press specializes in fine art lithography, a labor-intensive printmaking process where each color is created with a different lithography plate, and represents an additional run through a traditional manual press. Depending on the complexity of the image and the number of colors, an edition can take months to complete. Upon completion, the prints will be available for sale and one copy of each edition will enter CSIA’s permanent collection, which is frequently lent to various cultural and learning institutions around the region and nationally.
At the end of Farrell-Smith’s artist residency the public is invited to Crow’s Shadow for an artist talk and studio visit, which will occur from 5:00-7:00 pm on THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1st, with the artist speaking at 5:30 pm.
