The MAC Gallery opens the '26/'27 school year by showing off the fruits of WVC Art Department faculty members' professional artistic practices. The group exhibition includes creative works across a variety of media by Art Instructors Scott Bailey, Natalie Dotzauer, Arius Elvikis, Ellen Bruex, Linda Lyons, Elena Payne, Edgar Smith, and Sarah Sprouse, as well as Instructional Technicians Nik Penny and Denis DuBois.
2026 WVC Art Faculty Exhibition
WVC MAC Gallery
Sept. 4 — Oct. 30
First Friday Reception: Sept. 4, 5 to 7 p.m.
It is an important characteristic of WVC Art Department faculty members that, in addition
to being excellent, caring teachers of their disciplines, they are also high-level
practitioners of their crafts. This exhibition displays the fruits of the professional
art-making activities that make our art faculty members the fine artists and professors
they are. They teach with authority from a perspective of knowledge and experience,
having developed and refined their various crafts over many years. They are all practitioners
of what they preach.
These are instructors who care as deeply about their artistic integrity as they do
about being educators. They recognize that their studio work provides the solid platform
upon which to present their course content, but they don't impose their personal styles
and artistic decisions upon the students. They are caring and nurturing in the classroom,
striving to develop students with excellent fundamental skills with individual goals
for their own work.
The exhibition includes pieces by Scott Bailey (Painting, Drawing, Art Appreciation),
Natalie Dotzauer (Sculpture, Drawing, Printmaking, Art Appreciation), Arius Elvikis
(Graphic and Digital Design), Ellen Bruex (Art History, Art Appreciation, Drawing,
Figure Drawing), Linda Lyons (Digital Photography, 2D Design, Art Appreciation), Elena
Payne (Graphic Design, 2D Design), Edgar Smith (Drawing, Figure Drawing, 2D Design,
Art Appreciation), and Sarah Sprouse (Ceramics), as well as pieces by Art Department
Instructional Technicians Nik Penny and Denis DuBois. Through the consistent high
quality and the broad variety of styles, media, and conceptual concerns on display
here, viewers can see the breadth and depth of artistic experience in the WVC Art
Department.
Scott Bailey is an artist and educator who has produced and shown his work for over 30 years, including
holding more than 20 solo exhibitions in the US and abroad. He lived for years in
Italy, Japan, and Egypt, and traveled to over 50 countries before eventually settling
into Central Washington in 2003. His art draws implicitly on these disparate experiences
of the world.
He serves as the Director of the Art Program at Wenatchee Valley College and teaches
painting, drawing, and art appreciation. He is also curator of the MAC Gallery, which
presents high quality and thought-provoking contemporary art exhibitions. In his desire
to make his community a better place for artists and all residents, he started and
was the founding Board President of the North Central Washington Arts Alliance.
Bailey’s most recent paintings attempt to render the incomprehensible through accumulations
of millions of tiny bits of color. Monotonous and ambivalent fields from afar, closer
inspection reveals variation, saturation, and complexity as the surfaces break into
thousands of compositions, one nested inside another.
Natalie Dotzauer is a full-time faculty member at Wenatchee Valley College, where she teaches Sculpture,
Printmaking, Art Appreciation, and other studio courses. She earned her BA in Art
from Central Washington University and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the California
College of the Arts. Natalie is passionate about tactile, hands-on art making and
often explores interactive and participatory experiences in her work. Recent projects
include an interactive art dispensing machine called the “Art-o-mat,” and scaling
heights to cast 100-year-old crown molding in a theater. Her multifaceted practice
evokes a sense of a bygone era, blending down-home familiarity with a witty, ironic
edge through immersive, multi-sensory installations that invite viewer participation.
Arius Elvikis has been teaching design and drafting graphics at WVC for 15 years after receiving
his MFA in Intermedia from Arizona State University. When not teaching college students,
he is raising three wonderful kiddos with his incredible wife Colleen.
Linda Lyons is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Maryland who currently lives in Wenatchee,
Washington. She holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, with academic
training rooted in photography, particularly silver-based and alternative photographic
processes. Her work considers place, connection, and belonging through explorations
of light, movement, and change. She is drawn to slow, labor-intensive processes and
is currently exploring the creative possibilities of cyanotype.
Lyons has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and is a faculty member
at Wenatchee Valley College and Indiana University. She is committed to creating welcoming,
inclusive spaces in both her teaching and studio practice. When she is not making
or teaching art, Linda can usually be found somewhere outdoors, hiking or cold-plunging
in the Columbia River or one of the surrounding alpine lakes.
Ellen Bruex is an interdisciplinary visual artist, muralist, and art educator. She earned a BFA
in Art Education from Kendall College of Art and Design and an MFA in Interdisciplinary
Art from Wilson College. Her public murals bring color and delight to the walls, sidewalks,
and community of Wenatchee. Find her most recent mural on Orondo Avenue in Downtown
Wenatchee. In other visual artwork, Ellen uses language and text to explore beginnings,
endings, and our experiences in between. Ellen has taught art since 2011 and at WVC
since 2020. Her courses include Figure Drawing, Art History, and Illustration for
Murals.
For nearly two decades, Elena Payne has provided intuitive, expertly crafted design solutions for businesses of all shapes
and sizes. Her diverse, cross-disciplinary background is grounded in high levels of
visual expertise and technical ability, resulting in a uniquely adaptable skill set
that embraces new challenges with curiosity and enthusiasm. An educator and committed,
lifelong learner, her creative process is collaborative by nature and successfully
harnesses the power of visual expression to evolve businesses and brands.
For her art and design (separate from her client work) she has created the studio
name “Form & Play”, an articulation of the symbiotic relationship between the creation
form and the creative play involved in developing ideas and craft.
Edgar Smith spent his early years in California, Munster (Germany), and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Although he has lived most of his adult life in Montana—which he fondly considers
home—he currently resides in Wenatchee, Washington with his family. Smith pursued
his studies in Sculpture at Ohio University and later in Art History at the University
of Montana. Smith has taught Studio Art and Art History at several institutions, including
the University of Montana, Montana State University, Flathead Valley Community College,
and South Puget Sound Community College. Smith's work has been recognized by bands
like Pearl Jam and Deaf Charlie, who have featured his artwork on their album covers.
Recent exhibitions include Last Places at Gallery One in Ellensburg, a group exhibit at WVC entitled Uncertain Nature, and another group exhibit with the Saltmine Collective in Missoula, Montana.
His recent work travels on two paths, primarily centered around oil painting. “First, for the past 15 years, I have explored landscapes of the American West, with a particular focus on scenes of extractive industries like mining and logging. My aim is to portray the complicated relationship these industries have with the land and water. I often concentrate on specific segments of these landscapes, emphasizing their details using traditional observational painting techniques. Second, I have long been interested in naïve art. This form yields unexpected results through the combination of observation and imagination. Using this approach, I explore political and social issues and the iconic figures associated with them.”
His recent work travels on two paths, primarily centered around oil painting. “First, for the past 15 years, I have explored landscapes of the American West, with a particular focus on scenes of extractive industries like mining and logging. My aim is to portray the complicated relationship these industries have with the land and water. I often concentrate on specific segments of these landscapes, emphasizing their details using traditional observational painting techniques. Second, I have long been interested in naïve art. This form yields unexpected results through the combination of observation and imagination. Using this approach, I explore political and social issues and the iconic figures associated with them.”
Sarah Sprouse is a visual artist, educator, and art historian. She holds a PhD in the History of
Art from the University of Edinburgh, with research focusing on women ceramic artists,
collaborative studio practices, and histories of craft. Her work has been exhibited
nationally and internationally and is held in several permanent collections. Across
her work, Sprouse is committed to supporting artists and building meaningful, inclusive
communities through the arts. In addition to teaching ceramics at Wenatchee Valley
College, she also serves as Executive Director of the Grünewald Guild.