Before the Fire Lit My Dreams- A Solo Exhibition by Epiphany Couch
Posted by zeinab.saab
Epiphany Couch, As I Did As a Child, Archival Pigment Paper, 2024
- Exhibition dates: November 13th, 2024 – January 11th, 2025
- Opening event: Friday, November 15th, 2024 5-8p
- Gallery hours:
- Wednesdays 12-5, Thursdays & Fridays, 12-7pm, Saturdays, 12-5pm
- 24/7 view at 815 N. Killingsworth, Portland, OR 97217
- All events are free and open to the public.
Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade presents Before the Fire Lit My Dreams by Epiphany Couch. The exhibition opens Wednesday, November 13th, 2024, and runs through Saturday, January 11th, 2025.
Please join us for the opening event on Friday, November 15th, 2024 from 5-8p. Gallery will open at 12pm and close at 8pm.
All events are free and open to the public.
In her solo exhibition, Before the Fire Lit My Dreams, artist Epiphany Couch explores our connection to the land, each other, and the changing seasons. As humans living in urban areas, we often forget that we are part of planetary cycles just like all other living organisms on this earth. Couch’s expansive photo-based work, which features medium-format double-exposure images and poetic text, beautifully captures the complexity of existence and the important interplay between time, memory, and nature. Through 24 images of her family, tribal lands, and waterways, Couch blurs the lines between past and present, highlighting the rhythms that shape all life. Her work invites us to rediscover our place within these cycles, reminding us that true balance and harmony come when we recognize our inextricable relationship with the natural world. Her work serves as both inspiration and conduit for telling a moving story of connection, reminding us of the importance of finding our own cycles in living, amidst the disconnection that modern life often brings.
About the Artist:
Epiphany Couch (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist exploring generational knowledge, storytelling, and our connection to the metaphysical. By re-contextualizing mediums such as bookmaking, beadwork, photography, and collage, she presents new ways to examine our pasts, the natural world, and our ancestors. Couch’s work is unapologetically personal, drawing from family stories, her childhood experience, archival research, and her own dreams. She utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to create images and sculptural works that hold space for reflection, transforming from mere things into precious objects — intimate and heirloom-like.
Couch is spuyaləpabš (Puyallup), Yakama, and Scandinavian/Mixed European and grew up in caləłali (Tacoma, Washington) in the shadow of təqwuʔməʔ (Mount Rainier). She attended the Tacoma School of the Arts and earned her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Puget Sound. Her work has shown at Oregon Contemporary (Portland, OR), Gallery Ost (New York, NY), Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), and The Bellevue Art Museum Education Gallery (Bellevue, WA), among others. She is a 2024 Studios at MASS MoCA resident, recipient of a 2024 Ford Family Foundation’s Oregon Visual Artist Fellowship, and a commissioned artist for Oregon’s Percent for Art in Public Places. Couch lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where she is a member of Carnation Contemporary Gallery.
Instagram: @epiphany_couch_art
Website: https://www.epiphanycouch.com
About Paragon Arts Gallery
Paragon Arts Gallery is an educational showcase committed to exhibiting work of high artistic quality. Our versatile gallery is located at 815 North Killingsworth, at PCC’s Cascade Campus. Mindful of our role as a member of the Humboldt community, we are especially committed to engaging community members in our space.