Jennifer Angaiak Wood and Lea Basile-Lazarus

Jeffrey Moose Gallery is proud to announce an exhibition of work by two women, Jennifer Angaiak Wood and Lea Basile-Lazarus, for the month December. A reception will be held on First Friday, December 2nd from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibit will run through January 3rd. A Facebook livestream walk through will broadcast from approximately 5:20-5:40 PM Friday, Dec. 2nd.

Wood, part Yup’ik Native from Alaska’s Central Coast, will show a combination of paintings and carvings reflecting her indigenous heritage. Leah Basile-Lazarus, originally from Illinios where she received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will show a combination of mono prints and paper pulp paintings. The work is connected by natural themes, vibrant color, energy and rich textures.

Ms. Wood, who has a Masters in Education from U. Of Alaska, Fairbanks and a BA from the UW,  has exhibited at Stonington Gallery in Seattle and shown her work in events at the prestigious Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Autry Museum in L.A and, most recently, at Sacred Circle Gallery, Seattle, WA, part of Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center. In 2020, she was awarded two significant fellowships, the Nia Tiero Pacific Northwest Art Fellowship, which supports development for indigenous artists internationally, and the MAC Fellowship, a regional effort which was established to “empower highly-motivated emerging and mid-career artists looking to transition from undiscovered to established, self-sustaining professionals”. She is recognized as a carver in the Yup’ik tradition, the same one that influenced Miro, Picasso and others in the early 20th century, spawning the idea of Surrealism. But she is also a painter and printmaker.

Lea Basile-Lazarus has been a printmaker for over 40 years. Currently, she makes monotypes, which are one-of-a-kind prints, and paper pulp paintings that incorporate multiple layers of colors, shapes, images, and textures. Sometimes she will use literal photographic images in her work through a paper lithography process. Working in both printmaking and papermaking, Ms. Basile-Lazarus has been teaching for over 25 years. After teaching art for 16 years in Winnetka District 36, Lea retired from public school education and then spent the next 5 years teaching Visual Arts at Beacon Academy, a Montessori High School in Evanston. She was a recipient of a Teacher Fulbright trip to Japan, and through a non-profit organization called Do Your P’Art, Lea was sent to Africa to visit Ghanaian schools and villages. Her richly colored and textured works represent the finest tradition of American abstraction, embracing themes both urban and rural.