Inextricable, paintings by Austin Parkhill, on display at the ARC Gallery through March 11, 2017

Inextricable, paintings by Austin Parkhill ARC Gallery / Jan. 18-March 11

Austin Parkhill is a professional artist living and working in Homer, Alaska. Often described as a "hyperrealist" painter, Parkhill has exhibited his artwork nationally, including at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., and maintains gallery representation in Denver, Colo. From 2011 to 2015 he lived in the Arctic, where the shifting climate and the coexistence of man and nature have come to motivate his most recent works. There he painted and taught art at Ilisagvik College, a tribal college in Barrow, the northernmost town in the U.S. Prior to his time at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, the artist resided in Colorado and Boston, Mass. In 2015, he was awarded the Connie Boochever Artist Fellowship by the Alaska State Council on the Arts.

Artist's statement: The MEGAfauna series considers the way we as people interact with the natural environment, utilizing the arctic village of Barrow, Alaska as a backdrop. By confronting mega-sized arctic wildlife in local scenes, one must consider coexistence with these massive creatures, a genuine concern as the climate changes. After several years living atop the Arctic, I have become intimately familiar with the daily interactions with wildlife, exacerbated by the dramatic effects of global warming on this unique part of the world. The scale of the animals in these paintings casts them as an undeniable, exaggerated representation of the natural environment, primed for our re-evaluation.

About the gallery: The ARC Gallery is located on the first floor of the UAA/APU Consortium Library, between the Alumni Center and library circulation desk. The gallery is open to the public during library hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

---

Check out these other exhibits currently on display at the campus art galleries:

• "Cultural Perceptions of the Disabled in Art and Art History," will be on view at the Kimura Gallery (Fine Arts Building, Room 222) Jan. 23-Feb. 23.
• "Claybody Ceramic Invitational" will be on display at the Student Union Gallery (second floor of the UAA Student Union) Jan. 25-Feb. 10.

January Archive