Gage Co-founder Gary Faigin Exhibition at Harris Harvey Gallery: The Age of Steam



September 2 - October 2, 2021
Opening Reception: First Thursday,
September 2, 6-8 PM

The Age of Steam is an exhibition of new paintings by Gary Faigin. A Northwest artist and leading proponent of realist painting, Faigin focuses on the steam engine as the quintessential symbol of the Industrial Revolution. He depicts trains in a myriad of landscapes and fictional narratives, that beckon the train’s history as a fearsome and immensely powerful agent of change that linked coasts, devastated forests and buffalo herds, and even standardized time. The networks that railroads created were an earlier, physical version of today’s high-speed internet, changing the world’s concept of distance, and linking the formerly separate, like America’s East and West coasts. And yet, unlike the invisibility of the cyber world, the train has a dramatic and even theatrical physical presence, with all of its force and moving parts in plain view. Faigin’s paintings explore the two sides of this critical machine – its identity as an enormous mechanical sculpture which we cannot help but admire, while at the same time recognizing its capacity to forever alter the landscapes and people it encounters.

Gage Academy of Art acknowledges the Coast Salish Peoples as the original inhabitants of this area and connecting waterways. We understand the land that Gage occupies is unceded territory and that today many Indigenous peoples live here and without their stewardship, we would not have access to this space. We honor the Coast Salish Peoples’ sovereignty, rights to self-determination, culture and ways of life. Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have called this territory their sacred land. We commit to learning, educating others and repairing the legacy of historically harmful relationships between non-Native and Native peoples in King County. In doing so, we will be honest, and recognize the experiences of Native peoples to include genocide, forced relocation, forced assimilation, and land theft. We also acknowledge Native peoples are survivors, present in today’s world, thriving. We encourage everyone here today to ask themselves: what can I do to support Indigenous communities?

In an effort to be transparent, Gage is contemplating this call to action and re-working how to best support Indigenous communities.

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