Connecting Story / Oil on linen / 24” x 36” / 2022

In Connecting Story, Clark portrays Epiphany Couch, a Portland-based multimedia artist who uses lithography, bookmaking, archival materials and photographs to understand her Yakama, Puyallup and Scandinavian heritage. The painting’s aerial view divides the composition in two: one side occupied by Couch, on the floor where she sits perusing a trunk of family photographs and the other side filled with a Western-style desk topped with a grid mat. Couch’s arm reaches up in a gesture that bridges these influences, both literally and symbolically.

The trunk of memories fades in the shadows, while certain artifacts - brought into the light of the table - become legible. Epiphany chooses what to bring forth; they stand out from their surroundings, take on tinges of it, and are changed in the process of becoming visible.

LWC: When I flew out to Portland to meet Epiphany in her home studio, I was struck by how she seamlessly integrates the different stylistic traditions of her heritage in her space and in the visual language she uses as an artist. My goal was to manifest this sense of Epiphany’s heritage vibrating around and through her. I found myself reflecting on the complexity her work, seen by an audience that more often understands it from either an Indigenous perspective or a Western perspective and less frequently from her own point of view that identifies with both.