What We Need Is Here Jul 28 - Sep 9

Radius Gallery's next exhibition honors nature's unique ability to settle us, center us, and inspire us, with new artworks by Britta Anderson, Louise Lamontage, K. Bonnema Leslie, Bobbie McKibbin, Erika Parkin, Youpa Stein

The title of the exhibition comes from a poem of the same name by Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

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ARTIST BIOS

BRITTA ANDERSON

My paintings explore space and movement through scenic imagery. I tend to eschew location-specific reference points, opting to focus on up-close, edge-to-edge perspectives of rolling hills, crashing waves and luminous clouds that erupt in the sky. I am continuously trying to expand, examine and capture my relationship to the outdoors, and to express the intimacy I have with its elements. My hope is that viewers will engage the paintings as portals of the imagination, stepping through and feeling suspended in a moment, bringing to the experience their own associations and memories.

—Britta Anderson

Britta Anderson is a full-time Missoula-based painter with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and a BFA in Studio Art/Art Education from Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM). Traditionally trained, she embeds ideologies and techniques from 1800s Romanticism into contemporary approaches to landscape. Her solo show Recourse: Scapes by Britta Anderson opened at the Plains Art Museum in late 2022, and her work has been the subject of numerous other exhibitions across the Midwest and Southeast. Her paintings appear in private and corporate collections throughout the United States.

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LOUISE LAMONTAGNE

The process of painting is a very person exploration. Although often externally initiated, I create to deepen my understanding of my subject, my medium of choice, and as a challenge to find new ways of expression. With each new piece and each body of work I create, there is always an exciting new lesson to be learned. It is this process of discovery and the joyful act of moving my hands across a surface that sustains me as an artist. A bold brushstroke, a thin glaze of color mixed with passion and desire, and I am taken away to that magical place where inspiration lives.

—Louise Lamontage

Louise Lamontagne’s vividly realized oil paintings, with their simple, bold forms expressed in strong strokes and richly saturated colors, have earned her a significant place among contemporary Western artists. Her collectors include Seattle University, West One Bank, the City of Kent, WA, The Oki Foundation and the Missoula Art Museum. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the Rocky Mountain West, the New England states as well as in Germany, Canada and New Zealand. Originally from New Hampshire, Lamontagne began her college art education at The University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, CT, and continued at The School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, WA, and The University of Montana in Missoula, MT. She now makes her home in St. Ignatius, Montana.

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K. BONNEMA LESLIE

As a painter and printmaker, my work is the visual language with which I engage the world. I have always been greatly affected by my natural surroundings and I am intrigued by the power they have over feelings and our sense of place. I gravitate to patterns and color relationships in nature, and my compositions initially unfold based on those elements. I strive to generate the striking color harmonies that I see, and the three dimensional light that plays over the surface of a landscape. I feel it is important to not only paint the subject, but the air between myself and the subject, creating a sense of atmosphere, space and feeling.

—K. Bonnema Leslie

Kathy Bonnema Leslie, a Colorado native, now makes her home in Montana. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows across the country. Selected juried exhibits include: The San Diego Watercolor Society International Exhibition, The Taos National Exhibit of American Watercolor, The Midwest Watercolor Society National Exhibition and Watercolor West National Exhibition. Publications include 102 Artists of the Rocky Mountain West and Painters of the Tetons. Leslie was awarded the Visual Art Scholarship from the University of Northern Colorado where she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts. Other honors include selection for presentation to the Governor of Colorado, finalist for exhibition by Artist Magazine, and selected exhibitor with the Smithsonian ARTrain.

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BOBBIE MCKIBBIN

My work is shaped by living and working in the West. I see myself as a kind of reporter, someone who documents, a witness to the mystery and beauty that surrounds us. My work faithfully records a sense of place and at the same time celebrates the act of drawing and image-making.

—Bobbie McKibbin

Bobbie McKibbin taught art-making at Grinnell College in central Iowa for 31 years. Struck by the midwest’s vibrant colors and wide open spaces, she committed herself to capturing those landscapes in pastel, her preferred medium for over four decades. McKibbin has exhibited extensively throughout the United States with major shows in Washington D.C., Chicago, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Hawaii, and Montana. Her artwork has been collected by the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, the Des Moines Art Center, and the Missoula Art Museum. Now living in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, she continues to depict, document and illuminate the landscape that surrounds her. John Canady, author of Mainstreams of Modern Art, says of her work, "McKibbin impresses me as exceptionally skillful technically...and sensitive to the kind of interpretive values in subject matter that make the difference between skillful rendition and significant art. She finds in the most commonplace views of daily American life a native poetry that is all the more effective for their subtly controlled understatement."

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ERIKA PARKIN

My art is largely influenced by my surroundings. I like to spend time outdoors, observing how light and shadow play on different surfaces. I want to capture the beauty, vibrance and visual texture of the world around me, up close and far off. Being able to share that with others is my goal. As for my chosen medium, I love the fire! And I love the way glass moves when it's molten. Being able to manipulate that material to create what's in my mind's eye is incredibly rewarding. There is something that can happen when the moment is just right: I become totally one with the material. It's the most amazing feeling.

—Erika Parkin

Erika Parkin is originally from Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. She studied glass blowing at the School of Crafts and Design at Sheridan College in Ontario, then moved to Arizona to begin her professional career. She was a member of the Philabaum glassblowing team from 2007-18. Since 2018, she has assisted Tom Philabaum in creating a series of fused glass plates, platters, coasters and wall pieces. She continues to create unique and sought after blown vessels. Her work can be found in private collections across the continent, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. Clearly inspired by her surroundings and the wonder that is nature, Stein's most recent series explores varied landscapes created in syrupy rich layers of colored glass.

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YOUPA STEIN

My work is a physical expression of what engages me when I walk in the woods near my home. I experience these moments as layers of interactions with the temperature, light, air, water, plants, insects, animals and inorganic elements in the landscape. I bring these relationships to my work and see how we can collaborate to create something new. Whether it is photography or some other form of art making, I like finding how things fit together in what I am creating. It is a discovery, an exchange between the direction already present in the materials or images, my vision and curiosity.

—Youpa Stein

With nature-loving parents, Youpa Stein grew up in national forests--the Tongass in Alaska and the Kootenai in Montana. To this day she feels a sense of home when she's around water and trees. Stein has a BFA in Acting and Directing from the University of Montana, and an MA in Psychology and Drama Therapy from California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She was a member of the Montana Arts Council from 2005-2015, and co-founded Living Art of Montana, a non-profit she served for twenty-three years, employing the arts and nature to support healing. In 2010 she took up photography, her camera a means of capturing what she found so compelling in natural forms, the intimate, often abstract details in the environment that deepened her connections to a place.

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ARTIST BIOS

BRITTA ANDERSON

LOUISE LAMONTAGNE

K. BONNEMA LESLIE

BOBBIE MCKIBBIN

ERIKA PARKIN

YOUPA STEIN

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