Water Sky

Amirah Chatman and Douglas Burns

January 7 - 29, 2023

Come join us.

From the shared collective consciousness of Bug Durns (Douglas Burns) and Bottled Star (Amirah Chatman), we invite you to partake in blurring the lines between liquid and air, of above and below, and of seen and unheard.

Forged largely in part from a shared complicated relationship with organized religion, and a fascination with the unknown visuals of the afterlife, two local artists come together to merge their unique styles into a brand new iteration of belief.

The Water Sky manifests itself through site-specific sculpture, interactive immersion, evolving wall work, song, and ritual. We invite the viewer on a journey to experience this movement in a way that is both tangible and conceptual.

The Water Sky is a moment, a realm, and a menagerie of thought. Is The Water Sky a cult? What makes a church a church? Why is there a ball pit in here? Join us.

Artist Bios:

Amirah Chatman is a Black Queer Artist based in Portland, Oregon. She is an interdisciplinary artist who has exhibited nationally. Amirah moved to Portland from her hometown Phoenix, Arizona, to pursue an MFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and to be closer to nature. Her art explores visual ideologies of the afterlife, space travel, and weather phenomena. This work actualizes in the form of chalk pastel drawings, murals, installation, hued light displays, and wool sculpture.

Douglas Burns is a multi-disciplinary artist born in New Zealand and raised in Louisiana, and Portland, Oregon. His work is informed by a transient childhood where he often spent time sketching scenes outside of his family’s station wagon window. Now with children of his own, Burns continues to mine the subject by using parenting and workplace ephemera as source material for collages, assemblages, and videos. Burns holds a MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Art Practice: Printmaking from Portland State University. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo shows in New York and Germany.