Submitted by Alchemy Arts Center
Alchemy Art Center, in partnership with the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, is hosting a series of artist talks featuring our 2024 Artists-in-Residence. These free events can be attended in person or via zoom, and are hosted either in the Alchemy Art Center Dome or in the SJIMA upstairs meeting room. See the full list of Artist Talks below for more information.
Jo Becker and Laura Cañas
Sunday, June 23, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
San Juan Islands Museum of Art
Jo Becker is an artist from northern Indiana, now living and working in Washington State. Her work is inspired by history, the philosophy of consciousness, and a humanist approach to the divine. Through painting and printmaking, she seeks to create objects that offer opportunities for transcendence.
Laura’s mediums of choice are printmaking, comics, digital illustration and writing. Laura was born in Medellín, Colombia and her creative work is made from her perspective as a Latina and woman. Through her art she explores the themes of the feminine, gender violence, the power to heal, resilience and relationships within nature. She is also interested in the questioned relationship between Global North-South and economies. Currently, she is directing her career towards community art and maintaining her personal art practice.
Coco Leeper
Wednesday, July 24, 7 p.m.
Alchemy Art Center Dome
Coco Leeper is a multi-disciplinary artist from San Francisco who plays with the boundaries between organic and human-made imagery. Coco has a passion for things that grow and the beauty of the natural world around her; native plants of California often weave in and out of her work like the fine threads. Her mediums include but are not limited to screenprinting, ceramics, tattooing, painting illustration, sewing, weaving, mending and stop animation.
Maren Lamb and Sophie Stratyner
Sunday, August 25, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
San Juan Islands Museum of Art
Maren Lamb is a mixed media printmaker from Philadelphia, P.A, and earned her B.A. from Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. Her current work explores themes of mental illness, nature, and religion, and employs bright colors and densely layered textures. She is drawn to printmaking because of its tradition as the art form of social movements.
Sophie Stratyner is a fiber artist, printmaker, photographer, and traveler. Currently, Sophie lives on the road, working seasonally. Her work is shaped by the ever-changing environments she finds herself in, utilizing natural pigments, found objects, and personal narratives to document internal and external landscapes.
The Artist Talk Series is part of Alchemy’s Artists in Community Program, which creates opportunities for artists from diverse backgrounds to live and work on San Juan Island. This program is supported by the San Juan Island Community Foundation, the Horizons Foundation, ArtsFund, the San Juan County Arts Council, and by donations from members of our community.
For more information about Alchemy, please visit www.alchemyartcenter.com.
