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Thursday, April 29, 2021
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
Artists use masks to explore location, isolation & transformation
Contributed by Jennifer Durr
Art Center East
ment was probably more helpful and healthy
than I even realized at the time.”
tion through new lenses,” he said. “I began
to make work that was less concerned with
performability and more with expression.”
Expression is the name of the game when
it comes to masks. They can heighten, deep-
en or add nuance to viewers’ understanding
of their own emotional landscapes.
Unlike sculpture — an entity seemingly
contained by its own reality — masks are
unique in the way they invite themselves
into the viewer’s world, beckoning the viewer
to try on (fi guratively or literally) their
persona.
Masks, Fuemmeler explains, are a power-
ful tool for inviting transformation and
provide new ways of seeing to both ourselves
and our world.
His work for this exhibit addresses that
connection between persona and place.
“I’m exploring layers and superimposition
as a way of expressing places in the part of
Oregon I carry with me and that I am a part
of,” Fuemmeler said, “as well as the interior
spaces I have been occupying more of during
the pandemic.”
Fuemmeler’s work also delves into the
abstract for this exhibit with a set of fi gures
that lack a specifi ed narrative. Depending on
moment or mood or the eye of the beholder,
the artist said, “They can represent an
aspect of Portland, fears about oceans rising
or forest fi res, viewpoints only found here,
and more.”
Adds Fagan about this mutable quality of
masks: “I think I have just always appreci-
ated the opportunity that masks provide to
become something entirely different from
what I can accomplish with my own rather
limited face.”
Find out more about this event and others
at www.artcentereast.org. Current gallery
hours are Wednesday through Friday from
noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m. Gallery admission is always free
and open to the public. Exhibits can also be
viewed online via the art center’s website,
thanks to a partnership with John J Howard
Real Estate.
Art Center East programs are supported
by its members and funded with donations
and grants from sponsors and foundations.
LA GRANDE — Featuring the work of
two Oregon artists — Matt Fagan of La
Grande and Tony Fuemmeler of Portland —
“Missing Your Face: Masks of Location, Isola-
tion & Transformation” will be on display
May 7 to July 3 in the Art Center East Main
Gallery at 1006 Penn Ave., La Grande.
The exhibit was originally intended as a
collaboration between artists on opposite
sides of Oregon. The COVID-19 pandemic
shifted and enriched the exhibit’s focus as
the artists created masks in response to
their changed worlds.
“I was cast as the representative of rural
Oregon,” said Fagan, who grew up in Coos
Bay and spent two decades living in Chicago
and Portland before coming to La Grande.
“How was I going to represent Eastern Or-
egon as both a resident and, to some extent,
an outsider?”
Art Center East/Contributed Photo
Fuemmeler, the artist representing urban
A mask created by Matt Fagan for the
Oregon, found himself grappling with a
Art Center East “Missing Your Face”
similar question. Given that he grew up on a
exhibit refl ects the artist’s focus on “the
farm in rural Missouri then moved between
potential for humor” in a world changed
small, medium and big cities throughout the
by the pandemic.
Midwest and Northwest, his life experience
Fuemmeler has been making masks
no more easily boils down to “urban” than
intended for stage performance most of his
Fagan’s does to “rural.”
artistic career, weaving aspects like fi t and
Fagan’s work took shape when he be-
wearability into his work’s more concep-
gan imagining his masks as residents of a
tual elements. When the pandemic put
fi ctional place called Big Town. Functioning
Art Center East/Contributed Photo
professional theater on an extended pause,
as a sort of “funhouse mirror” of La Grande,
The “Missing Your Face” exhibit at Art
Fuemmeler was prompted to reconsider his
his masks avoid making fun of rural living,
Center East includes the artwork of Tony
instead focusing on things in and around La process.
Fuemmeler, which embodies the idea
“I had the opportunity to look at the idea
Grande that bring him joy and would yield
that masks give us new ways of seeing
of masking, relationship and transforma-
the most appealing results, while encourag-
ourselves and our world.
ing him to examine his own attitudes
in the process.
“Making these masks became my
primary coping strategy for living
during a pandemic,” Fagan said. “I
focused on fi nding things to get ex-
cited and laugh about — because to
me, that’s what is compelling about
the work. I’m motivated by the chal-
lenges, but especially by the potential
for humor.”
215 Elm Street La Gande • (541) 963-5440
The results are the whimsical,
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mysterious and often magical satire
of someone looking for ways to create
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lightness from a heavy year.
Fagan added, “Having a process
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that constantly focused my attention
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Showers possible
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on positive aspects of my environ-
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