Exhibitions
“Thantatopsis- Contemplations on Death, Grief, and Renewal’ is a partnership program presented by the Royal Nebeker Gallery at Clatsop Community College and Astoria Visual Arts, September 21–October 22, 2026 featuring an art exhibition and five accompanying public events and workshops that foster deeper connection through discussion and creativity. Community members are invited to reflect on mortality, grief, healing, and the shared experience of loss.
The month-long art exhibition ‘Thanatopsis’ at the Royal Nebeker Gallery is by three female visual artists who are practicing end-of-life doulas (EOLD). Marne Lucas (Portland, OR) conceived the show, in collaboration previously with Dardinelle Troen (Astoria, OR), and recently invited Emma Lewis Acker (Brooklyn, NY). ‘Thanatopsis’ is a new iteration for the Royal Nebeker Gallery that includes collage, assemblage works on paper, sculpture, photography on paper and silk derived from black and white infrared thermal (IRT) video, and collaborative altars. As part of the exhibition and workshop programming, Colesie Tharp (Portland, OR) will present an interactive Remembrance Altar on the CCC campus, and at Astoria Visual Arts.
A moderated in-person conversation will take place at the Royal Nebeker Gallery, with Emma Lewis Acker, Marne Lucas, Colesie Tharp, Dardinelle Troen, and moderator Jo Brickman are all practicing end-of-life doulas (EOLD). They will discuss their relationship to end-of-life care, and to each other as artists and doulas, and their artistic processes and materials. An opportunity for questions and answers will follow. End-of-life care advocacy materials will be made available throughout the duration of the exhibition, and at the related workshop series held at the Astoria Visual Arts gallery in downtown Astoria.
Gallery Hours - Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm. Weekends by appointment only.
The Royal Nebeker Gallery is free and open to the public, and is ADA accessible. For more information contact Kristin Shauck at kshauck@clatsopcc.edu.
‘Thanatopsis- Contemplations on Death, Grief, and Renewal’
Emma Lewis Acker, Marne Lucas, Dardinelle Troen
On view: September 21 - October 22, 2026
Royal Nebeker Gallery, Clatsop Community College
1799 Lexington Avenue, Astoria, OR.
Artist Reception: October 15, 2026, Thursday, 6-8pm. The artists will be present.
End of Life Doula + Artist Panel Talk: October 16, 2026, Friday, 6:00-7:30pm
Royal Nebeker Gallery
Emma Acker Lewis, Marne Lucas, Colesie Tharp, and Dardinelle Troen
Moderated by Jo Brickman.
Exhibition Photos By Lucas Troen
‘Hospes’
2023, September
Neighbor, Chelsea, New York, NY
Acker’s First Solo Show. Curated by John Silvis
Emma Lewis Acker works in a hybrid form—not quite collage or painting, not quite textile.
Born in the UK and raised in New Zealand, she moved to NYC to attend college. Acker began to make visual art in her 40s.
Using salvaged, industrial rolls of paper she found discarded outside a matzo factory in her neighborhood, Acker began experimenting with designs, shapes and textures embedded from her early years and developed her artistic process—painting large sheets in rich colors before tearing them to pieces and reassembling in rows of stitched color and pattern.
Acker’s work is deeply connected to her role as an end-of-life doula, a career that has roots in her early years in the city. Arriving in New York as a teenager, she rented a room from an aging dancer in Greenwich Village and their relationship grew over 30 years, with Acker taking care of her friend at the end of her life.
Acker’s work explores the interdependent nature of life together—the mystery inherent in the relation- ship between the organic and mechanistic; the eternal and everyday; the earthly and the numinous.
www.emmalewisacker.com
@emmalewisacker
www.allswellinitiative.com
John Silvis is an art advisor based in New York City and Berlin.
The focus of his practice is on marginalized conversations of identity, spirituality and sustainability. Silvis writes for Artsy, CNN and PARNASS, and curates exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Vienna, Berlin and Singapore. In addition to building international private art collections, he is committed to facilitating art dialog through studio visits, artist interviews, and podcasts.
He is on the board of Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts.
www.johnsilivs.com @john.silvis.art www.fsa.art
