“These Two Facts Exist,” an Exhibit by Ron Linn

The new exhibit in the SSH Art Gallery ‘These Two Facts Exist’ features many different drawings by Portland native Ron Linn. Linn’s graphite composite comes after local print maker Tallmadge Doyle’s, ‘Pollination’. On March 5, 2018, a reception and talk was held to show his drawings and give students a chance to ask questions about his work and talk art.

Linn has bounced around as an artist, as he has spent time at an art residency in Iceland for two months, and in Nevada, where he studied art. He recalls his time in Iceland as a “really intensive, focused time to explore my art at a bookbinding workshop.” Soon after, he obtained a bachelors of art at the University of Oregon. He currently teaches at the school he got his undergraduates degree in Nevada.

Landscape is a very critical theme in his art, as he said, “My artwork seems to come back to this idea of place and trying to connect with place.” Linn recalls an old geologist roommate he had that looked at things differently than he did in relation to the landscape. “Whenever we’d go hiking, he would see things entirely different than I saw.”

All of the work on display is done in pencil. In fact, Linn claims he would “use mechanical pencils, mostly.” Using pencil on all of the art depicts calm but intricate lines with this particular medium.

Though there aren’t many colors, rather shades, Anne Magratten, a professor in LB’s fine arts department, said of Linn’s work: “It’s a wonderful reminder as I see you [Linn] stepping in and out of these different ways of working that this is the blessing of contemporary art. It’s the flexibility to occupy many different artistic positions.”

The art piece seen on the floor is a drawing of a windsock. Linn gives a profound interpretation to this, as he displays the idea of “windsocks as this empty body that reveals invisible forces. You don’t see the wind, but when it interacts with this tool used to measure the wind, you can finally start to see it.”

‘These Two Facts Exists’ gets its name from “this idea that a drawing of something being looked at as an object, and the object itself as two different things. So you have a drawing of a rock, that exists and you have an actual rock is a second fact that also exists.” He goes on to say, “We would privilege the actual object as being the ‘true thing’, but in many ways there’s something very true about the drawing of the object. Through interpretation and conversation, it is a fact that exists.”

The exhibit will be on display in the SSH Art Gallery until March 29, 2018, so swing by the South Santiam Hall on the first floor and check out Linn’s art.