A long-running collaboration behind a current Lightcatcher show is “more like a conversation than a process.”
Towering, circular photo installations up to 15 feet wide, woven from thousands of 4×6-inch prints, greet visitors to the Whatcom Museum’s Lightcatcher. The white walls offer a quiet backdrop to these vivid rings of everyday life, including birthday parties, road trips and family pets. Light bounces off waxed thread and glossy surfaces, animating the room.
Artists Garth Amundson and Pierre Gour are showcasing their collaborative exhibition, “Not the Whole Picture,” at The Lightcatcher in Bellingham, since kicking off Pride Month and running through July 27. The show features mixed media works that explore identity, loss and queer history through photography, installation and storytelling.
Amundson and Gour, who met at the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1985, are married, long-time artists and professors at Western Washington University. “We’ve worked together for over 40 years. Our collaboration has become second nature — more like a conversation than a process,” Gour said.
Domestic space reimagined
“The artists wished to have a wallpaper effect in the gallery as a nod to a domestic space — and specifically to one of their homes early in their relationship,” said Amy Chaloupka, the museum’s chief curator. A subtle damask stripe pattern was painted onto the gallery walls using alternating gloss and flat finishes, creating an atmospheric backdrop for the works.
Chaloupka described the spatial flow of the exhibit as a journey. Visitors first encounter the duo’s most recent collaborations, then travel backward through older projects and individual works. “We really thought of the show as a giant site-specific installation and wanted it to feel like the visitor was stepping into a three-dimensional collage,” she said.
According to Chaloupka, one of the most frequent reactions during the tours is astonishment at the scale and craftsmanship of the works. Visitors are especially curious about the HEAD(s) installation, its complexity and physical scale — “all of that hand stitching!” she said.
Central to the exhibit are three panels of portraits with heads cut out, each one pinned and arranged to mimic a massive petri dish. “We’ve been collecting archival, photographic images and portraits,” Amundson said. “Then we excise the heads. You’ll see a theme about notions of identity, of loss and hidden history as a queer couple, as a binational queer couple.”
More than a retrospective
“It’s not a retrospective; we’re still alive. It’s just a selection of some of the work that we’ve done for the past 40 years at a small representation,” said Gour before opening the large double doors leading into the Lightcatcher’s main gallery space.
Both artists draw on personal backgrounds that resist categorization. Amundson, who grew up surrounded by biology and home-canned preserves, such as “salamanders suspended in jars beside jellies,” brings a scientific, archival impulse to his work. Gour, whose heritage and visual storytelling are informed by printmaking traditions from Vietnam and France, embeds historical allegory and animal imagery into his paintings.
In one piece, a procession of rats, drawn to redescribe a 15th-century Vietnamese woodblock print, offers a bribe to a cat to hold a wedding ceremony in peace. “It’s about how one gives a bribe to those in power to get what they need done in this sort of humorous context,” Gour said.
“Out of the rats’ voices are the pink and yellow, pink and blue and white of the trans flag. Whether the rats are screaming or singing or celebrating — that’s up to the viewer,” Gour said. “It’s about letting the viewer create their own narrative.”
Early work, lasting threads
When the two first met, Gour was using pornographic imagery to critically understand gender roles and identity through his paintings; Amundson was tampering with ideas of taxidermy and scientific tools to create photo transfers onto masks.
One of their earliest collaborations involved molding sculpture from their own underwear, a cheeky nod to museology and masculine display. Over time, their visual language has matured but never lost its intimacy.
The title, “Not the Whole Picture,” hints at gaps in representation, the parts of queer, immigrant and cross-cultural experience that history often omits. The use of scientific pins, archival photographs and mixed media photography categorically describes the artists’ personal experiences with transnationalism and queer relationships.
“There is a lot of emotion surrounding the idea of erased histories, lost stories, personal anecdotes shared of experiences of homophobia and empathy for the desire for safe spaces,” Chaloupka said.
Many visitors, she added, were surprised to learn that gay couples were legally allowed to marry in British Columbia a decade before in the U.S., a detail that highlights the Gour’s cross-border immigration.
The museum’s marketing and public relations director, Adrienne Dawson, said that the show became a cornerstone for their Pride Month programming. “Among other events, we hosted a Not the Whole Picture drag show in the Lightcatcher courtyard that embodied the spirit of Garth and Pierre’s exhibition; one performer even used actual elements from one of their installations,” Dawson said. The exhibition had nearly 900 attendees, 39% of whom were first-time visitors.
Presence beyond the artwork
Beyond that single event, Dawson sees the show as part of the museum’s longer-term mission. “Garth and Pierre have been so gracious with their time and energy, hosting free exhibition tours and leading workshops over the last several months,” she said. “It’s this consistency and their steady presence that have been the most important for building relationships and reinforcing our belief that everyone — anyone — belongs at the museum.”
“Some visitors will quite literally see themselves in the art,” said Dawson, referencing the more than 800 photographs donated by community members that were used in one of the installations. “But others will recognize grief, hope, humor … and love. Guests won’t need to read any text panels to feel that.”
With “Not the Whole Picture,” Amundson and Gour ask viewers to slow down and sit with complexity. To consider what’s missing, what’s hidden and what stories lie just outside the frame. And in doing so, they offer an invitation, into memory, resistance and the evolving archive of queer experience.
Their influence at Western is as much about pedagogy as it is about presence. “As practicing artists, we continue to lead by example in our pedagogy,” said Amundson. Gour has taught courses in drawing, painting and color theory, while Amundson teaches black-and-white photography and professional practices for studio artists, among other courses.
Gour often begins his quarterly courses by singing a traditional French song, a small act of cultural memory. Both he and Amundson incorporate low-tech, tactile media into the classroom, encouraging students to experiment, collaborate and reflect.
“Pride is about visibility, being ‘happy’ and resistance — and through our art, we hope to connect with others, spark conversations and honor both the struggles and the triumphs that shape our community,” said Gour. “For us, it’s more than just an exhibition — it’s a moment of reflection, celebration and connection.”
— By Mickey Mann
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Lynden art center to prioritize inclusivity,” June 2, 2025
• “How Black PNW artists find peace in a changing world,” March 18, 2025
• “Beyond obstacles: artists with disabilities express healing through creativity,” March 13, 2025
• “La Conner coffee shop paddles upstream,” March 11, 2025
• “Whatcom Museum opens heritage exhibits to Indigenous people,” Feb. 24, 2020