November 16 – January 21, 2014
Vernal Bogren Swift is a batik-maker. Her choice of art forms, her fascination with pattern, and her receptivity to the myths of many cultures originated in Africa. She explores the relationship of geology and perception and incorporates iron-rust from the earth to strengthen this message. Living and working part of the year in Bovey, Minnesota, and part time in Haida Gwaii, an island off the coast of northwest Canada, Ms. Bogren Swift has been deeply influenced by the way people see things depending on where they live. For example, on the Island, one thinks “earthquake!” each time there is a ground shudder. In northern Minnesota, ground quake means active mining/blasting and the mind thinks of the activity as akin to “thunder.” Evidence is that our thoughts are created from the place where we have landed.
A graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA, 1996) in Bloomfield, Michigan, she received a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship in 1998 and a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant in 1999 for an Australian trip to visit Shark Bay where ancient stromatolites, considered to be the “mother of iron ore,” are still found. The National Art Gallery and the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C; Haida Gwaii Museum, Skidegate, British Columbia, Canada; and the North Dakota Museum of Art have collected her work.
Installation Images
Vernal Bogren Swift, Housewives.
Batik Triptych.
Vernal Bogren Swift, A Garden of Earthquakes.
Batik Triptych.