Christine Bourdette | Erosion

September 5 - 28, 2019

First Thursday Reception: September 5, 6 - 8 pm

Christine Bourdette’s new works included in Erosion explore vulnerability and resilience through sculptures and drawings that mimic the colors, textures and shapes of nature. Drawn to the mutable and sensual materiality of paper, Bourdette says, “paper absorbs and carries, it weathers and stains in unforeseen ways.” In the wall sculpture titled Rift, stacked sheets of paper embedded with sand and sawdust unfold, and an opening blooms with a brilliant violet mineral pigment.

Bourdette’s mixed media drawings combine expressionism and realism, and possess the intimacy of nature studies. Graphite and colored pencil renderings of geologic formations feature patterned striations and stacked organic shapes underlaid with intense flourishes of pastel, sumi ink and watercolor. Bourdette’s gestural mark-making infuses a kind of depth and movement that transmits the sensation of being inside a landscape, whose accretions and erosions remind us of human impermanence, frailty, transformation and fortitude.

Christine Bourdette is a visual artist whose practice includes sculptures, drawings and installation. Her meticulously crafted artworks comment on social, political, or human predicaments through a three-dimensional vocabulary that incorporates a wide repertoire of materials. Bourdette received her BA from Lewis & Clark College (Portland, OR) and has exhibited in the United States and France, including solo exhibitions at The Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), The Tyler Museum of Art (Tyler, TX), Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA), Klein Art Works (Chicago, IL), The Alexandria Museum, (Alexandria, LA), and Galerie L’Aire du Verseau (Paris, France). Her sculpture and drawings are in many public and private collections nationwide and her art has been featured in Sculpture magazine and reviewed in Art in America, Artweek, and Visions Quarterly. She has been featured in three Oregon biennial exhibitions and has permanent public artworks in Portland, OR, Tempe, AZ, Seattle, WA and many other locations. Bourdette was the first recipient of the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship Award in 1992.