Clatsop Community College
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 22, 2006
Contact: Teri Sund, (503) 338-2478.

CCC Art Gallery Hosts Iókste Akweriá:ne / It Is Heavy On My Heart, the work of Gail Tremblay

The Art Center Gallery at Clatsop Community College in Astoria will be exhibiting the work of artist Gail Tremblay April 4th through April 28th, 2006.

There will be an opening reception for the artist Tuesday, April 4th at 6:30 pm at the Art Center Gallery. Tremblay will also be presenting a lecture, on Tuesday April 4th at 3:00 pm in the Art Center Gallery; this event is open to the public.

Gail Tremblay of Olympia, Washington has been contributing to the arts and cultural life of the Northwest for over 25 years, by sharing a unique vision through her multi-media visual works, art installations, critical writings and poetry. She is a professor at The Evergreen State College, where she has mentored hundreds of students in the fields of visual arts, literary arts, Native American and cultural studies. She has served the larger artistic community as a member and president of the National Board of the Women’s Caucus for Art, and received a national “Mid-Career Art Award” from that organization in 1993. She was also the recipient of the Governor’s Award for the State of Washington in 2001.

Her influence has been felt on the international level through her two trips to China as part of women’s artists’ delegations, and her exhibitions in Switzerland in 1985, China in 1995, Mexico in 1998 and the Czech Republic in 2000. Her visual art has been featured in the Northwest in over 40 group and solo exhibits and throughout the nation in an additional 60 exhibits. Her writing and art has been published in more than 50 different books, journals, and periodicals; she is also in great demand as a lecturer and workshop presenter. She has worked for 35 years to assure that issues of diversity and gender equity are addressed in the teaching of art, in the writing of art criticism and art history, in the curating of exhibits, and in the granting of public and private funding to artists and art institutions.

Tremblay brings to the Art Center Gallery two installations; “Dreaming of Rivers and Trees”, which considers nature’s relationship to mankind. This installation is “an homage to the way nature sustains our souls even in the most troubled times. ” “Iókste Akweriá:ne”, an Iroquois phrase meaning, “It Is Heavy On My Heart”, is an installation most recently exhibited in Brazil. This installation deals with the effects of nuclear pollution on reservations and indigenous people. Tremblay who has been studying this issue since the 1960’s notes rising cancer rates as well as increased rates of infants born with birth defects among the Navajo, Shoshone, Yakama, Colville, Inupiat and Inuit people, all indigenous people whose lands have been contaminated by mining of uranium, the testing of atomic bombs, and radioactive emissions and spills from nuclear power plants. Tremblay states that “because indigenous people hunt and/or fish and gather local plant foods also exposed to radiation, native people concentrated much higher rates of radiation in their bodies than many non-native people in surrounding areas.”

Tremblay also addresses current nuclear policies by the U.S. government and further impact to native lands and people. “Current U.S. Nuclear Posture Statements also call for the building of new nuclear power plants that will create more nuclear waste, the development of new, small nuclear weapons called bunker busters for use in ‘limited’ nuclear wars, and the testing of these new weapons.” This artist and poet wants all Americans to consider the devastating effects these policies have on its Native people, “it is a travesty to endanger peoples practicing their traditional life ways on this planet, Mother Earth, who has sustained life for countless generations. This installation is meant to educate about these issues and give voice to indigenous people who are struggling for environmental justice.”

Also to be included in the exhibition will be Tremblay’s basketry. Tremblay who is a member of the Onondaga and Micmac nations combines traditional techniques of weaving with contemporary materials. She is represented by the Froelick Gallery of Portland, Oregon.

Gail Tremblay’s work will be on exhibit at Clatsop Community College’s Art Center Gallery April 4th – April 28th, 2006, with an opening reception for the artist Tuesday, April 4th at 6:30 pm. Tremblay will also present a lecture Tuesday, April 4th at 3:00 pm. Both events will be at the Art Center Gallery and open to the public. For more information please contact Bill Ittmann or Teri Sund at (503) 338-2478.

Image #1: “The Red Starlett Dressed In Green and Blue” (made of 16 mm film)

Image #2: detail of Ms. Tremblay’s installation, “Iókste Akweriá:ne / It Is Heavy On My Heart”