Biography

TIM GUTHRIE, the Joella Cohen Endowed Chair at Creighton University, is an Omaha-based multimedia visual artist and filmmaker. His work has been awarded several Independent Artist Fellowships (Distinguished Artist, Filmmaker) from the Nebraska Arts Council for his traditional and digital art, as well as animation and films. He was also awarded Best Visual Artist, Best Show (4 times), and Best New Media Artist (4 times) by the OEA awards. He has presented his work nationwide and internationally, including at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Residencies include the Blue Mountain Center, Vermont Studio Center, Hall Farm, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, International Sculpture Center (Top 25 MFA Sculptors in the Nation), and fellowships from the Sierra Arts Foundation and the Nevada Arts Council.

His films have won numerous Best Documentary awards, the 2017 Humanitarian Award (GIFA), as well as several Audience Awards, Special Juror’s Awards, and others, including selections at Wales, UK, Sweden, Bucharest, Sydney, Hiroshima Animation Festival, Athens International Animation Festival, Control Arms Conference in Italy, Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, as well as festivals in London, Copenhagen, and Toronto. He was a TEDx Omaha speaker in 2018.

Statement

Artists are often asked, “Which medium do you work in?” by those seeking a common thread in the work. In my art, rather than a consistent medium or style, the common threads are conceptual concerns where the medium and format changes depending on the demands of each particular body of work.

Every few years, I introduce a new series, often focused on social issues, presented as installations. Installations include Nuclear Dichotomies, Extraordinary Rendition, and currently, The Museum of Alternative History, which will soon be a large art book. Concepts in past work often address war, the environment, power and oppression, and education.

The most significant recent installation, for which I am now creating a large art book, is the Museum of Alternative History, which has upcoming exhibitions schedule over the next few years.

In an age of “fake news” in a post-truth era, The Museum of Alternative History’s topic is cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias – particularly the way we interpret, filter, and accept or reject information based on our own personal biases.

A number of years back, a school board in Texas, led by Doc McLeroy began changing textbooks and education curricula. As an example of those changes, they removed references to founding members owning slaves.

Even though more than 99 percent of scientists agree climate change is real and caused at least in part by man, some individuals want 50 percent of the debate to come from climate skeptics, and the language of the new textbooks reflect that. McLeroy wanted science to be taught as “just a theory.”

The Museum of Alternative History is a response to those efforts to change education curricula around the country. It is about a fake, revised and twisted history based on political biases. Opinions supplant facts. Selective facts are used to make disingenuous arguments based on personal beliefs and opinions. The museum is about forcing one’s beliefs onto others.

The Museum of Alternative History offers a selection of the fittest explanations for the nature of the world and universe, and alternate histories contrary to ... well ... history.

The book will cover the project, and will include essays on cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.