ARTIST STATEMENT
There Are Many Different Ways To Be Beautiful is a series of textile photogram collages exploring beauty, mystery and resilience. Inspired by childhood stories lived, and the beauty of the natural world.
These photograms utilize a silhouette iconography as a medium to examine folklore and ritual as building blocks to our contemporary selves. I am creating new stories, allowing women to see reflected expressions of their own beauty, creativity, strength, sexuality and power. The work considers the idea that we are vessels full of histories and memories, revealing only parts of ourselves.
The use of textiles reflects on the traditions of women’s relationship to fabric as a meaningful part of our human story. This history represents a millennia of universal and culturally specific botanical knowledge and relationships with the natural world, literally and poetically.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Pamela Chipman is a Portland, Oregon based visual artist who explores themes of memory, domesticity, and femininity, through photography, video, installation, and fiber projects. She creates work that speaks to the history, strengths, and struggles of women in our culture. She received her BA in psychology from Marylhurst University, she studied photojournalism at Boston University and fine arts at UCLA.
Chipman’s work has recently been featured in exhibits at The Archer Gallery, Portland Oregon, The Pacific Northwest Drawers at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR, Imogen Gallery, Astoria, OR, Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon WA, and the Art at the Cave Gallery, Vancouver WA, where her photo based installations Inner Voices and Threads debuted in 2019.
Chipman’s photographs are in permanent collections at the Portland Museum of Art and The Portland Visual Chronicle. Her innovative video books, which utilize a creative approach to QR code technology, are held at the UCLA Library and the UC Santa Cruz Library. Her video work has been exhibited internationally in galleries at film festivals, and on television. Jumptown, her multichannel video piece, was installed on an exterior wall in Portland Oregon.
© Pamela Chipman