Overview
Intrigued by rural agricultural structures, Vashon Island-based artist Cris Bruch has created an installation of six multimedia sculptures that echo building shapes observed on long drives across America’s farm belt. In his meticulously constructed works, Bruch employs such disparate materials as recycled metal roofing, birch plywood, crushed corn, and toy Lincoln Logs to create both monumental and intimately scaled structures. Inherently metaphorical, embedded content is both personal and historical—raising questions about the transition from a rural to an urban society and how necessity and American ingenuity may lead to surprising formal results in objects as mundane as grain silos. Bruch has exhibited nationally and internationally, and his work is represented in distinguished collections including the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Portland Art Museum.
APEX is an ongoing series of exhibitions of Northwest-based artists, curated by Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art.
The APEX series is supported in part by The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Endowments for Northwest Art and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.