Pamela Blotner

Pamela Blotner "is an artist and writer who has lived in the Bay Area for the last dozen years. She maintains a Berkeley studio in which she creates sculptures and drawings reflecting on humankind's relationship to nature, science, and calamity. In her writing and travels she examines the survival strategies used by artists, the works they create in response to violence or war, and the power of art to serve as a touchstone that shapes a culture and ensures its continued survival.

"Over the last 18 years, much of Blotner's work has been informed by her experiences as an Illustrator/Mission Specialist on missions for Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, and the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center. She has worked with or written about war survivors and artists in Guatemala, Iraqi Kurdistan, Bosnia and Croatia, Cambodia, and Burma.

"Blotner has recently returned from Rangoon, where she completed the first phase of her ongoing project, "the Burmese-American Art Exchange." This first exhibition, held at the American Center in Rangoon, paired previously unseen, politically sensitive drawings and paintings by 22 Burmese artists with works created by Bay Area visual artists in response to images and e-mails sent by their compatriots. She was able to bring these works out of Burma and, in Phase Two, plans to exhibit them in the Bay Area while developing satellite exhibitions of art by the local Burmese community in exile.

"Pamela Blotner is a Professor at the University of San Francisco, a member of the faculty of Pixar University at Pixar Animation Studios, and an Advisor to the Board of Artist's Rescue Mission in Houston, TX. "


 * Member, University of San Francisco, Human Rights Working Group

She is married to Eric Stover.