Sum of Its Parts

Sum of Its Parts is a three-person show that explores perception and how we synthesize and process information, including sensory engagement with place. Working with varied materials and navigating the intersection between representation and abstraction, the pieces address diverse mechanisms of processing input and the selective process by which we construct personal narratives. The works also touch on conflicting stances and impulses – real and synthetic and micro and macro – and assimilation and personalization within a world whirling with vastly varied information.

Included artists are Chris Lael Larson, Morgan Rosskopf, and Emily Somoskey 

About the artists:

Chris Lael Larson utilizes photography, painting, and sculpture to reimagine landscape. Working with photographs of and materials collected from Lost Lake in Oregon’s Mt. Hood National Forest, his immersive process blends exploration in the field with multimedia construction in the studio. Chris has exhibited his work in Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR, with notable exhibitions at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, REDCAT and Spring/Break in Los Angeles, and Field Projects in New York. Chris lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Morgan Rosskopf uses materials and interwoven techniques to de- and reconstruct associations between visual and expressed language. She collects imagery from both personal and nameless sources, printing it onto materials that are bleached, stretched, and distressed. Morgan hand- and machine-stitches the textile and synthetic materials in a collage-like fashion, puzzling together conversations between texture, shape, space, and meaning. Morgan received her MFA in Fine Art from the University of Oregon in 2013 and has shown her work nationally and internationally. Her work has been supported by The Oregon Arts Commission, Ford Family Foundation, PICA, and various private collectors. Morgan lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

Combining painting, collage, and photography, Emily Somoskey explores different levels of truth in representation. The work also questions our sense of place and relationship to worlds and wonders beyond our immediate awareness or understanding. Emily received a BA in Art Education at The University of Akron in Akron, OH and an MFA in Studio Art at Michigan State University, MI. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and she was awarded an artist residency at the Golden Foundation for the Arts, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and was nominated for a 2025 Joan Mitchell Fellowship.