University of Oregon Visiting Artist Lecture Series
Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
Jim Drain: “Making Time: Craft-Based Sculpture”
Thursday, April 20, 4:00 p.m.
Lawrence Hall, Room 115, 1190 Franklin Boulevard, Eugene, OR
“When I first started adding knitting to my sculpture, I was excited that I could quickly customize a ubiquitous material and apply it to sculpture as a stand-in for the body. It was a skin paused in motion. I could move away from a space that felt stratified and stale; however, through a number of important texts and exhibitions that dove into the archive, I clearly saw there was a lineage of marginalized artists that had come before me working in the same space without recognition. The space of Craft is not without its own difficulties and problems; they persist. But being able to invest in material, process and a discipline has been an antidote and nourishing place for making during the uncertainty of Covid.” Jim Drain, 2023
Jim Drain was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1975 and attended the Rhode Island School of Design (1994-1998 BFA, Sculpture). Drain was a member of Forcefield, a collective that merged music, performance film and installation into one. Forcefield was active from 1996 to 2002 and was part of the Whitney Biennial, 2002. Drain has had solo exhibitions at the University of Florida; Locust Projects, Miami; and the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin. Drain has participated in group exhibitions at MOCA, LA; the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia; Serpentine Gallery, London; Depart Foundation, Rome; and the 7th Bienniale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon. Drain was one of two recipients of the 2005 Baloise Prize and was recognized with artist Bhakti Baxter for creating “best public art projects in the nation” by Americans for the Arts in 2015.
Lectures are also live streamed and archived on YouTube. This lecture is made possible by the Gilkey Foundation.
Website: www.jimdrain.info
Headshot caption: photo credit: Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Image caption: zapf dingbats, 2018, exhibition view at Nina Johnson Gallery, Miami, mixed media and variable dimensions
The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
