On January 26th, 2022, ECPN’s fourth Exposure engaged in dialogue with Nick Conbere’s work. This inspiring dialogue focused on Nick Conbere’s artistic practice to explore ways to use landscape, seen through the lens of personal experience and narrative, to visualize intertwining relationships of the natural and human worlds.
Using drawing, printmaking and related digital techniques, Nick shared ways he juxtaposes and layers imagery to encourage connections among disparate ideas and to evoke a sense of memory and history. Each artwork he described is based on many on-site sketches which are later developed in a studio setting. He showed how researching ecological and cultural histories of a place strengthens the visual documentation.
Throughout this invigorating evening, he shared his projects which range in subject matter, from invented landscapes based on observations of scenic tourist sites to a collaborative, interdisciplinary project reflecting on the effects of dams on the Columbia River. His work aims to create artwork in which real-world imagery and information resonate metaphorically, creating a space for the imagination. For more about Nick Conbere’s work visit his website here.