Photo by Aileen Imperial

Markel Uriu is an interdisciplinary artist based in Seattle, WA. Her work explores impermanence, maintenance, and the unseen. Drawing from her Japanese and Irish-American heritage, she is particularly interested in liminal spaces, and explores these concepts through, research, ephemeral botanical narratives, installations, and two-dimensional work. Her subjects of time, cycles, and cultural interchange have culminated in a fascination with invasive species. Her current work explores the nature of invasive species, their environmental impacts, and their links to humanity, colonialism, and globalization. 

Markel received her BA from Whitman College in 2011. She is the recipient of various awards and residencies, most recently the 2018 Amazon Artist in Residence, and the 2016-2017 Artbridge Fellow at Pratt Fine Arts Center. She is a member of the Lion's Main Art Collective for Queer and Trans Artists, Seattle and SOIL Gallery, Seattle, and has shown throughout the United States.

Books mentioned in the interview were The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and NW by Zadie Smith.

 

Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him to keep his anger still in motion. (PNW murmuration)2019Starling skins, starling scansDimensions variableAn accumulative installation contemplating the introduction of the European starling to North America. Eugene Schieffelin, the chairman of the American Acclimatization Society, an organization dedicated to the introduction of European flora and fauna to North America, sought to introduce every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. In 1890, he released 60 starlings in Central Park. The birds survived, and subsequently spread throughout the entirety of the United States. There are now an estimated 150 million inhabiting The United States and parts of Mexico and Canada. 60 starling skins were repeatedly scanned and printed, and added to a growing murmuration throughout the duration of the show. From "An Object Lesson" a solo show at the Hedreen Gallery in Seattle, WAPhoto by Joe Freeman

Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him to keep his anger still in motion. (PNW murmuration)2019Starling skins, starling scansDimensions variable, DetailPhoto by Joe Freeman

The Human Dimensions of Biotic Homogenization (Pangea Revisited)2019Scans (Narrowleaf plantain, common mallow, common dandelion, chickweed, pigweed, american bullfrog, kudzu, japanese knotweed, himalayan blackberry, human, cat, european rabbit,  common starling, brown rat, house mouse, zebra mussel, asian clam, blue mussel, brown trout, rainbow trout, common carp, largemouth bass, pigweed, wild sage, water hyacinth, red swamp crayfish, grass, european sparrow, and horse tamarind)Dimensions variableA collection of species now present on all, or most continents, scanned, and woven together. Mapping out the emerging global ecosystem. From "An Object Lesson" a solo show at the Hedreen Gallery in Seattle, WAPhoto by Joe Freeman