Dana Lynn Louis, Samantha Wall, & Akio Takamori

This exhibition will feature work by three of this year’s Contemporary Northwest Art Award Winners: Dana Lynn Louis, Samantha Wall, and guest artist Akio Takamori. Each artist provides a unique perspective of internal and external relationships with the world around us and with one another.

Portland artist Dana Lynn Louis employs a variety of materials to construct dynamic multimedia installations. Her work has long been inspired by the enduring and captivating systems of the human body, the natural and constructed world, and their interconnections between each other and nature.

Samantha Wall, a Portland-based artist creates portraits using ink and graphite or charcoal to communicate the inner emotional states that separate us as individuals, while simultaneously linking us as a whole. Wall’s drawings reveal the shadow-like transparency that our bodies convey when internal emotions are “difficult to penetrate and are cloaked even from our own awareness.” Born in South Korea and having grown up in the American South, Wall draws on her distinct experiences of diverse cultural environments to inform her understanding of how people's emotions and facades inform their interactions with the world around them.

Japanese artist Akio Takamori is a Seattle-based ceramic-sculptor who creates figurative representations of men, women, and children. He explores the social, cultural, and racial relationships, conflicts, and interactions that define us as individuals and the world we occupy.