Groups shows, older work, miscellaneous
Jenise Silva and Michael Nank Showing Up For Artists Day, 2024
1) Proclamation from the Mayor of Seattle
2) “Jenise Silva, Oyster, Michael Nank”, photograph by Jon Rowley, 2010
Each document is 8.5 x 11 inches, framed
Dear Jenise and Michael, this gift comes from noticing how often I see you out & about at art events. I have gotten to know you in little bits and pieces over the years as our paths have crossed. I assume that part of the reason you are out & about so much is because of your work as writers and photographers. But in thinking about the times that I have seen you, it seems to me there’s something more to it than just a job. You model curiosity & enthusiasm with your presence, an openness towards new things & a love of artists. I give you this gift on behalf of a community for which I have appointed myself the representative☺. This community includes the members of SOIL, who gave me permission to pursue this gift in their name. It also includes a much larger community of artists, musicians, filmmakers, performers, chefs & creative people you have touched over the years. I often find myself dispirited these days. It can be hard to find the energy to go out. What keeps a city alive? Making & enjoying beautiful or fascinating things, telling stories, listening to & making music, cooking & eating — these are gifts of solidarity, of aid & care for one another. I picture these gifts as forming a kind of seawall against powerful forces that seek to erode our life, liberty & joy. Thank you for being present in community, over and over, in your gentle & open-hearted way. In admiration, Matt
City of Seattle
PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, the City of Seattle is proud of our thriving arts community — enriching our collective spirit, our sense of belonging, and our understanding of the world; and
WHEREAS, Seattle artists can only sustain this work insofar as they are encouraged, uplifted, and supported by community members who show up for their creative endeavors; and
WHEREAS, for the past twenty years, Jenise Silva and Michael Nank have been showing up for Seattle artists; and
WHEREAS, most evenings and weekends, you can find Jenise and Michael out on the town following the imperative of their blog Mixyplix: “Grab your coat, let’s go!:” and
WHEREAS, Jenise and Michael have attended countless art openings, meals, concerts, performances and community events over the past twenty years; and
WHEREAS, advancing the values of our One Seattle vision for a thriving, innovative and inclusive city through their exceptional dedication to supporting new creative work, Jenise and Michael have fostered several generations of Seattle artists, strengthened community connections, and become role models for anyone who seeks to cultivate our cultural landscape; and
WHEREAS, while Jenise and Michael have played many roles in their lives, one of their most sustained and generous gifts to Seattle has been their gentle, curious, and enduring attention to art and artists as demonstrated by their unmatched commitment to showing up again and again; and
WHEREAS, as SOIL Art Gallery’s presents “To You, From Me,” an exhibition that encourages audience members to think about gratitude and gifts, the SOIL art community celebrates Jenise and Michael; and
WHEREAS, the City of Seattle recognizes Jenise Silva and Michael Nank’s legacy of dedication and leadership to the Seattle arts community.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BRUCE A. HARRELL, MAYOR OF SEATTLE, DO HEREBY PROCLAIM DECEMBER 5, 2024 TO BE
Jenise Silva and Michael Nank Showing Up For Artists Day
[signed: Mayor Bruce A. Harrell, City of Seattle]
photo by Colleen RJC Bratton
Made for To: You, From: Me, a group exhibition about gifts curated by Colleen RJC Bratton, Tania Colette B., and Forrest Perrine at the SOIL Artist-Run Gallery.
Count the Stars, 2023
Adonai builds Jerusalem
and gathers the outcasts of Israel
heals the broken-hearted
and binds their wounds
counts the stars
and names each one
–Psalm 147
What are the broken parts of yourself and others you might help heal? What do you wish to gather, and attend to, and bring into being through your attention?
A special project for the Kavana Cooperative High Holidays services.
Chiron, 2018
Chiron and Ellen Ito
Mud, straw, sand, wood, wire, found basket, dried plants with abortifacients and emetic properties. Approx. six feet tall.
This is a sculpture of the famous centaur Chiron who was a teacher and inventor of botany and pharmacology. He was unusual because he was known to be wise and gentle, unlike most centaurs who were mostly known for wild and violent partying. (Although I wonder if this wasn’t expression of a xenophobic prejudice.) In some stories, Chiron injuries himself accidentally while making poisoned arrows for hunting. It was a terrible wound that never completely healed. Chiron’s ongoing attempts to heal this wound is what led him to create the body of knowledge around the application of plants as medicine. Jung used this story to develop the idea of “the wounded healer” which proposes that professional healers are compelled to treat patients because they themselves are wounded.
I made this for festival:festival, curated by mario lemafa, Seattle, August 2018.
I used mud and straw from a vacant lot next to my studio that until recently held a RV encampment, and dried weeds harvested from the bike path above the freeway. I picked weeds that have purgative properties when ingested by humans – a comment on what kind of communal healing we might need at the moment.
La Norda Specialo #15, “Restorative and Healing Tactics” is a related zine mario and I made for festival:festival. Download the pdf
I say: “Radical” You say: “Feminist”, 2018
untitled sculptures
acrylic paint on ceramic, glazed ceramic and mud
I say: “Radical” You say: “Feminist” a group show at Clark College, Vancouver, WA curated by Senseney Stokes.
Forever 22+, 2017
“Forever 22+”, December 2017, Specialist Gallery, Seattle, Wa.
Many Lands, 2017
“Many Lands”, January 2017, Bridge Productions, Seattle, Wa., curated by Ben Gannon.
Free as in Free, 2016
Pandemonium, 2015
The internet has become the primary place to seek out art information. If the fin de siècle editors of Pan were beamed to the future, would they find the web a triumph of their effort to create a technologically sophisticated network of international arts communication? Or would they be horrified by the vast, churning database of fan fiction, exhibition aggregators, museum collections, and funny cat videos? Join Seattle artist and publisher, Matthew Offenbacher, Neal Fryett, Jason Hirata, and Mystical Orchid, as they perform an experimental art dive into the web.
This was an experimental performance/panel I organized for The Frye Art Museum’s exhibition Pan: A Graphic Arts Time Capsule of Europe 1895-1900.
Bed Bath & Between, 2015
By Julie Alexander, Nicholas Nyland and Matthew Offenbacher, and including work by Katrin Bremermann, Maria Britton, Dawn Cerny, Terry Green, Margie Livingston and Mathieu Wernert.
SOIL Gallery, Seattle, February 5 - February 28, 2015
“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.” —Oscar Wilde’s reputed last words
photo by Nicholas Nyland
International Supermarket Survey, 2015
During a 2014 bicycle tour in Western Europe, Whitney Ford-Terry collected notes, maps, tickets, pamphlets and other ephemera which she mailed to correspondents in Seattle, asking us to interpret them in some way. The results were posted on a website and were to be published in a book that never got made. Other correspondents included Molly Mac, Anastasia Hill, Alex Kostelnik, Tessa Hulls, Matt Hilger and Robert Mittenthal.
Organized by the The New Foundation Seattle
Nepo 5K Don’t Run, 2014
photos by Kari Champoux and Chip Rountree
Made for the finish line of a community art festival curated by Klara Glosova, Sierra Stinson, Zack Bent and Serrah Russell. Acrylic paint on cardboard and wood.
A Mural about European Unity for behind the bar, 2014
acrylic paint and colored lights, 8' x 30'
Kunstweekend Charlois, July 2014
Foundation B.a.d, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
The Neddy at Cornish, 2013
untitled
tempera and acrylic paint on concrete
7.5' circumference x 13' high
Site-specific painting for the Cornish College Gallery, Seattle
September–October 2013
The Neddy at Cornish is a $25,000 unrestricted award in memory of Ned Behnke. It is awarded annually to two artists from the Puget Sound region. The 2013 recipients were Matthew Offenbacher and Victoria Haven. The exhibition also featured finalists Julie Alpert, Jack Daws, Emily Gherard, Andrea Heimer, Dan Webb and Robert Yoder.
visit the Neddy at Cornish site
read the City Arts interview
Scratch Explores, 2012
A video game for Mac OS 10.5 + and Windows.
Synopsis: You are a small black cat who lives in an overgrown garden. Nothing much happens.
“Favorite Art Projects”, 2014. Henry Art Gallery. Curated by Tova Cubert.
untitled drawing, 2011
pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 10"
Being There, Cornish College, 2011
Ribbon Memory Board
foam, paper, wood, ribbon, tacks, exhibition announcements
67 x 24 1/2 x 1.5", 2010
“Being There”, April 2011, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, Wa. Curated by Sierra Stinson.
The Pajama Game, Nepo House, 2011
untitled
distemper on stainguard cotton
52 x 45", 2010
“The Pajama Game”, February 2011, Nepo House, Seattle, Wa. Curated by Jason Hirata, with work by Gretchen Bennett, Daphne Stergides, Sol Hashemi, Matthew Offenbacher and Ian Toms.
visit the Nepo site for more pictures
Reclaimed, Seattle Art Museum, 2011
“Reclaimed: Nature and Place through Contemporary Eyes”, Seattle Art Museum, June – September 2011. A selection of post-1970 work from the museum collection curated by Marisa Sánchez. This shows the final room of the exhibition including enlargements of La Especial Norte #4 on the left. Photo by Nathaniel Wilson.
The Arc of Picasso, Greg Kucera Gallery, 2010
untitled drawings, graphite on paper, 9 3/4 x 8 1/2" each
“The Arc of Picasso”, October 8 - November 13, 2010, Seattle, Wa.
Intellectual Property, 2010
Installation view, week 1
Detail: Wynne Greenwood and Philip Thurtle
What makes an intellectual? What is the basis of property? What is the relationship between the life of the mind and the sensual world?
Organized with Yoko Ott for the Hedreen Gallery, Seattle University. Including work by PJ Alaimo, Ken Allan, Cris Bruch, John Carter, Richard Gray, Wynne Greenwood, Mandy Greer, Heide Hinrichs, Robin Held, Isaac Layman, Susie J. Lee, Christine Luscombe, Philip Miner, Saya Moriyasu, Emily Pothast, Philip Thurtle, Charles Tung, Ben Waterman, Dan Webb, Lindsay Whitlow, Greg Wilson, Kathleen Woodward, Jason Wirth and Claude Zervas.
Studio Sale BBQ Biennial, 1128 Poplar Place, 2010
Deb Baxter, Gretchen Bennett, Ian Toms, Jason Hirata, Jenny Heishman, Joey Veltkamp, Matthew Offenbacher, Nicholas Nyland, Sol Hashemi, Wynne Greenwood
untitled drawing, 2010
ballpoint pen on paper, 8.5 x 11"
Moonlight Requisition, 2009
Collaboration with Deb Baxter and Margot Quan Knight for The Gift Shop. Installation view at the Henry Art Gallery. The sink came from a women’s bathroom in an old South Seattle factory building owned by the U.S. General Services Administration. Deb had her studio there along with about forty other artists. For ten years, space had been inexpensively leased to artists, thanks to an unusual arrangement made by an art-loving federal administrator.
Deb, Margot and I “requisitioned” the sink on the evening before the building was closed and demolished for redevelopment. We removed the foot pedal and hid a pump in the base so that it took the form of a continuously flowing fountain. We made a decorative floor for it, using industrial tiles to form a quilt pattern sent to us by Deb’s mom.
Second Peoples, 2009
Gretchen Bennett, Jenny Heishman, Heide Hinrichs, Matthew Offenbacher
“It has always been a place of abundance. Long before the arrival of European settlers, the area's resources allowed indigenous peoples to develop uncommonly rich artistic traditions. Once settlers arrived, these same resources—timber, fish, rich land—enabled economic prosperity.” (Alaska Airlines Inflight Magazine, October 2007)
We have coined the name ‘second peoples’ to describe the people who arrive late on the scene, after the beginning, after the abundance, after the traumatic event, after everything’s been said and done, after, even, the end. We are the second peoples. Chances are, you are too.
This is an exhibition dealing with what it means to be second. We inhabit a landscape of iteration, reverb, elision, and generational noise. Our corner of North America—these mountains, that timber, this rich land—belonged to someone else. Our popular culture—those TV shows, that movie sequel, this new band that is so retro they’re cool—belonged to some other time. Our art is that way, too: this gesture to Donald Judd, that nod to Philip Guston, that Eva Hesse wink.
We are interested in locating the coordinates of this second position. How did we end up here? What is our responsibility for what happened before us? What is our responsibility for the things that happen now in our names? Like Simone de Beauvoir argues in “Second Sex”, we think we should be free to transcend ourselves as subjects, to not be confined to existential leftovers.
Contemporary art is concerned with this alchemy, trying to turn second-handedness into first-handedness, reversing the flow of energy, presenting not representing, creating value from valuelessness. We think this is a worthwhile activity. We also think it is a fraught activity. The work in this exhibition exposes some of the fractures created by this ceaseless turning, and also dreams of a third position, a reification of our desire to escape, a momentary place to stop.
Helm Gallery, Tacoma, Washington, 2009
A Special Project for Bard Hall, 2005
A Special Project for Bard Hall
The work in this show asks simple questions about color, line and pattern. For instance, what if the relationship between foreground and background were inverted? What would it look like to fix the shape of the sky, seen through the windows, from a single point in the room? What if you focused on the mortar rather than the bricks? The shape of the wall hangings are based on how the ocean looks between houses, fences, cars and other things that get in the way of a view. How does a broken pattern suggest the part that is missing? These questions involve paying attention to visual boundaries. I hope posing them here, in the community hall of a church, suggests thinking in a metaphorical way about other sorts of boundaries.
Light show, polyester color filters, 2004
Fabric wall drawings, fabric and thread, 2002
Skyline, acylic paint on static cling vinyl, 2003-4
Net, nylon rope and metal brackets, 2004
First Unitarian Universalist Church, San Diego, California
untitled drawing, 2008
pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 10"