THE FOCUS

Wesley Roden: The scale of your work coupled with the attention to detail allows viewers to either look closely or from a distance. How do you anticipate your works to be viewed and how do you create them with this dynamic in mind? Do you expect the works to be viewed personally, impersonally, or somewhere in between? Bethany Carlson Coffin: I definitely put a lot of emphasis on the experience and the encounter. That dictates, to a large degree, the...

Rachel Bubis: Your recent exhibition at the Parthenon, The Odyssey: A Retelling (2022), takes inspiration from Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of Homer's epic poem, and highlights the “hospitality of the overlooked identities that made Odysseus’ long journey home possible.” Were you a fan of Homer before this exhibition? Lisa Bachman Jones: I was not a fan before, but I was interested in how Homer’s work was a foundation for Greek education. What propelled selecting Homer and The Odyssey for this project wa...

Rachel Bubis: You mention that your prints "explore our relationship with other living creatures as we become further removed from the natural world.” How did your passion for animals and the environment first begin? Ashton Ludden: I think we all first have that fascination with animals and the wild world when we are children. For me, I’m sure it began in my young childhood, particularly when I was between 2 and 8 when I lived out in the countryside of Western Miss...