The Yellow Forest
Jessie Rose Vala and Stephen Nachtigall

Exhibition Dates: June 7, 2019 - July 21, 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 2019 from 7:00PM-11:00PM

The Yellow Forest by Jessie Rose Vala and Stephen Nachtigall invokes notions of temporality and the shared imaginal in order to address the tenuous connections that contemporary western society has to our earthly environment. The exhibition focuses around an expansive multiple channel video installation, sculptural ceramic forms, cut vinyl structures and printed imagery that reference our deep psychological connections to plant and non-human consciousness. The exhibition invokes these connections as a way to re-learn, re-wild, diversify, revive and internalize our bonds to home.

or she of the world and as or one of many of many

Poem by Lisa Radon

unfurls th’articulating lateral sensors mine sinister and dexter in the dark // settings dialed for anticipated input load and yet // tuning beyond surface shell skin bark peel topsoil exoskeleton // reach // and // the impact lays      me      out // hollows round a black hole caldera yawning wider rooted low behind the jaw  // while silent keening high and outward past my edges // hollows wide and opening to r e c e I v e // shiver the hairs on my neck hollows as rushes in one a thousands more ten every and engulfing // layered wave on wave on pulse upon pulse beat shark heart pulse cricket ray beat deer rushes uptake pulse root to leaf tip mycelia to gill // my     breath      gasps     me // flows this polyrhythmic everypulse // inhales me sharply breathes // remember to breathe // here we are // livingly sense me too and too living water living soil living stone ///


I turn off the feed // flow the tears now crying me behind lids and blades ///


sweet series of tumbling trilling a staccato call and call // translator wren // the breath of the world // the variegated bells we call them bells these pipes resonators // feathers stirred an excitation of needles fur granule leaves a rocking of cones as eggs of eggs ///


unfurls the spiraled distal tendrils mine sinister and dexter in this skinwarm dark // place the back of the head on the earth prone place // the back of the shoulders on the earth // the back of the hips the earth the calves and heels on the earth // breathe // feel the parts of you that are touching the earth // breathe // feel the parts of you that are touching this warm air // the breath of the world  // and as the world // as she is many and I too (or properly, “I”) // one after the other unspiral as yellow shoot or tendril rhizome antenna dendrite tendrils trace soil’s surface probe openings groundwasp burrow rootthrow deeper into and through cane and rootpith slow and through soil clay stone // this-a-listening tuning to vibrations of the hexfooted traffic of pebble slippage and groundwater seep trickle vibrations the beak on the trunk to the root // there is a hairline crack in the stone ///


it would be impossible absurd now to use the word feel in the old way ever again deprecated in its limitations its most basic recordings translations of sensory inputs and deprecated in the impossibility of its accounting for emotional responses to what we will call an extended range of inputs // it is likewise impossible not to feel to know her many-ness // our // “I” as many // of many // or myriad many-as-one as the shellworkings of the decorator crab ///


take care of the world one // sufficient self-contained and force field cloaked // scraper on wing file call and call this is clicktalking this is whistletalking // having exited the pavilion of the flaming tongues // the breath of the world // dreaming beak under wing // weaving bull kelp bulb and leaf // a call it residual occulted sensitivity // windbrushed sensor filaments whose roots are nerve-wired // inhales me scent the pale fresh tips of young cedar needle green ///

Stephen Nachtigall (b. 1986, Calgary, Canada) is a visual artist working in Arcata, California. He has exhibited throughout Canada, the United States, Scotland and Germany. He received a BFA in Sculpture from the Alberta University of the Arts and an MFA in studio art from the University of Oregon. His work considers the way in which we relate to things like plants from a mediated perspective, utilizing video, animation, sculptural installation and 2D work to ultimately seek an equitable relationship between human and non-human. Nachtigall currently serves as Assistant Professor of Digital Media at Humboldt State University. 



Jessie Rose Vala (born 1977, Madison, Wisconsin) is a multimedia artist working in ceramics, video, installation, and print. Vala received an MFA from University of Oregon and a BFA in painting and ceramic sculpture from California College of the Arts in Oakland, California. Her work has been exhibited at Ever Gold Gallery (San Francisco, CA), V1 Gallery (Copenhagen, Denmark), Present Company (Brooklyn, NY), Torrance Art Museum (California), and has been featured in art fairs in New York and Miami, FL. Vala was an artist in residency at Fjuk residency (Húsavík, Iceland), Playa at Summer Lake (OR), Jentel (WY), Can Serrat (Spain) amongst others. She has received grants from the Oregon Arts Commision, PICA, and the Ford Family Foundation. Vala is part of Ungrund Collective, a collective of female video artists who curate screenings nationally.