Creative Residency 2023 Jurors:
Visual Arts

The focus of Sharbani Das Gupta’s art lies in the interconnected issues of land, identity and ecology. The dramatic landscape of her New Mexico home is a constant source of inspiration. She also enjoys collaboration and values the perspective gained through travel and artist residencies away from home.

Ken Matsudaira is a fourth-generation islander, graduated from Bainbridge High School in 1985, and has spent most of his adult life living off the island. He has lived on three continents, both coasts, and upwards of seven metropolitan areas. His educational background is in art and cultural studies (having veered off sharply from biomedical engineering in his first few years of college) and his academic interests include Japanese-American history, pop culture, and social justice praxis. He’s been a berry picker on the island, a photographer’s assistant, a teacher for the Upward Bound Program, an SAT prep instructor, and, for the past twenty years prior to BIMA, the curator of the M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery at Seattle Central College. He is committed to helping people to re-imagine their worlds, to find inspiration, and to access experiences outside of their own.

Randena Walsh was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Randena became fascinated and intimately acquainted with the natural world while growing up on Puget Sound.  Her studio on Gamble Bay is surrounded by the flora and fauna that inform much of her work.

Randena received her Bachelor of Arts degree from The Evergreen State College in 1996.  She was a three-year recipient of the Alfred G. & Elma M. Milotte scholarship for her undergraduate work in painting and natural history studies.  She has taught design at Olympic College and demonstrated drawing and painting techniques as a guest artist for arts organizations and design and painting classes.

Randena has been exhibiting and receiving awards in regional and national juried shows for over 20 years. She has been published in Whatcom Museum’s 2005 catalog, An Enduring Legacy, Women Painters of Washington 1930 – 2005, and North Light Books Strokes of Genius 2, Strokes of Genius 3, Strokes of Genius 4, and Art Journey Animals: A Collection of Inspiring Contemporary Masterworks. She is a member of Women Painters of Washington and the Northwest Pastel Society, earning the title of Distinguished Pastelist in 1995.