artandaboutpdx

[artandaboutpdx]

"The Villian Within" by LilKool

"The Villian Within"

LilKool

Opening reception: Friday, September 21, 2018

LilKool was born in Dallas, Texas 1985. Disenchanted by the ways pop culture was slowly brainwashing the masses, LilKool took to painting as an act of defiance, beginning with spray-paint. Since moving to New York in 2008, LilKool’s repertoire expanded to include painting, illustration, large-scale murals, photography and fashion collaborations. His style transcends each medium it inhabits. From paneled comic strip style illustrations to abstracted interior stills that rethink modern living- LilKool’s style manages to be diametrically varied but immediately recognizable. His use of flattened, visceral colors and clean black outlines makes each character he paints familiar, yet captivating. LilKool’s stylistic influences range from classic painters and the cartoons of his childhood to snippets from the obscure comic book scene. His content draws from web culture, Pop Art, politics and life in Brooklyn.

[artandaboutpdx]

"Marble Tongue, Diamond of My Heart" by John Gnorski

Marble Tongue, Diamond of My Heart

John Gnorski

October 3-November 25, 2018

Opening reception: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 5-7 PM

LOWELL is pleased to announce, Marble Tongue, Diamond of My Heart 

Sculptures by John Gnorski

Artist Statement:

Marble Tongue is a mythical being and also the name of the language that she speaks. She shifts her shape at will, and everyone understands her when she sings. She is everybody's mother. 

These sculptures are portraits of Marble Tongue and object-poems written in automatic drawing. They are cut-out, fastened, wrapped, folded, perforated, abraded, and decorated “scholar’s rocks”, and my small contribution to the speculative mythology that we are creating together every day and that we must create in order to imagine tomorrow. 

Kenneth Patchen wrote a poem that I imagine Marble Tongue would say to us before flying away on her multi-colored wings: 

Now when I get

back here I ex-pect 

to find 

all of 

you marching 

through the 

streets with great 

bunches of wildflowers 

in your arms 

Bio:

Born in Virginia, John Gnorski is a carpenter, sculptor, and Earth Baby.

[artandaboutpdx]

"Side Effects May Include" by Tamara Staples

Side Effects May Include

Tamara Staples

October 4-28, 2018

Opening reception: First Thursday, October 4, 2018 from 6-9 PM

Mental Health and Polypharmacy Panel: Friday October 6, 2018 at 3 PM

Side Effects May Include is a photo-based installation by Tamara Staples that focuses on the relationship between mental health and poly-pharmacy, or the simultaneous use of multiple drugs by a single patient. The project was inspired by the artist’s sister, who took her life with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals after living with bipolar disorder for many years. Following her death, Staples collected the contents of her sister’s medicine cabinet, sorted the thousands of pills, arranged them in patterns, and photographed them. She then translated the photos into wallpaper, a quilt, upholstery, dresses, and drapes to create an entire room covered in pill-based patterns. This deceptively alluring and decorative display immerses the viewer in a cacophony of images, echoing the tremendous scope of the poly-pharmacy epidemic in the United States today. In conjunction with Side Effects May Include, Blue Sky will host a panel discussion about mental health and poly-pharmacy on Saturday, October 6th at 3PM. The panel will include mental health practitioners and individuals with lived experience including John Herold, Director of Puget Sound Hearing Voices; Gina Nikkel,PhD, President and CEO of The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care; Sean Syrek, Department Director with the Mental Health Association of Oregon; and Tamara Staples, exhibiting artist. Moderated by scholar and educator of medical humanities Lois Leveen. Tamara Staples is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. After she received her BFA in Photography from the University of Florida in Gainesville, she began her career as a prop stylist for print and television. Now a commercial and fine art photographer, her work has appeared in numerous publications including Harper’s Magazine, New York Times, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Food and Wine, Town and Country, Utne Reader and Bloomberg Business Magazine. Her work has been also featured on This American Life, CNN, Slate Magazine and NPR’s Animal House. Staples has exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson, New York; Purdue University Galleries in Lafayette, Indiana; Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Georgia; Ricco Maresca Gallery in New York City; Museum of Modern Art in Baltimore, Maryland; Aron Packer Gallery in Chicago, Illinois; and Lightworks Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina. Staples is the recipient of a NYFA Grant, a PDN self promotion award, the 2014 Bronze award from the Royal Photographic Society, and has completed a Rauschenberg Residency. This is her second solo show at Blue Sky.

Blue Sky Gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday from 12-5 PM

[artandaboutpdx]

"At The Horizon" by Katherine Spinella

At The Horizon

Katherine Spinella

October 4–26, 2018

Opening reception: Thursday, October 4, 2018 6–8 PM

At the horizon. transports the refuse of commerce into fractured, elevated, and philosophically personified artifacts. Katherine Spinella uses printmaking, sculpture, and photography as a means of archiving and deconstructing commonplace objects and materials in search of their embedded ideological meaning. Moving between image and object-making, she constructs meaning through the process of collecting, assembling, flattening, archiving and deconstructing. Mining both the physical and virtual, forms are compounded and layered into fragmented moments. Plastic grasses, crumpled wrappers and cast geologies become subsumed by blindspots, conflating overlooked forms and material histories while transforming the familiar through abstraction in an effort to render it anew. Aiming for a visual sensation of hypertouch (i.e. handled, discarded and renewed), neo-geological casts become symbolic stand-ins for an imagined archeology of a dystopic present. She considers life distilled and concentrated into the quiet physicality of objects that are cast away. Looking at representations of the natural world and discarded objects that are byproducts of human activity as seen through the lens of commercialism, Spinella explores the fallacy of our perception of human dominance and mastery over the natural world. Katherine Spinella is an artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. She explores the fallacy of human dominance and mastery over the natural world, while transporting the refuse of commerce into fractured, elevated, and philosophically personified artifacts. As a collector, Spinella uses printmaking, sculpture, and photography as a means of archiving and deconstructing commonplace objects and materials in search of their embedded ideological meaning.

Spinella has exhibited at Musée de Charmey in Charmey, Switzerland and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center and Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR and most recently at Carnation Contemporary, Woodshop Projects and One Grand Gallery. Images of her work are published with essay Artist as Archivist by Georgia Erger in Peripheral Vision’s Journal No. 7. She has recieved grants from the Oregon Arts Comission, attended residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Kala Art Institute, and Womens Studio Workshop and is an MFA (2013) graduate from the University of Oregon.

Along with a rigorous studio practice, Spinella is Co-founder and Member of Carnation Contemporary; a collective of Portland-based artists who support critical and contemporary artwork from emerging and mid-career artists.

White Gallery is open Monday–Wednesday from 12–5 PM & Thursday–Friday from 12–6 PM

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"In My Palm" by B. Anele

In My Palm

B. Anele 

September 29—October 28, 2018

Opening reception: Saturday September 29, 2018 from 6-8 PM

Join us on Saturday September 29, 6—8 PM for the opening night of B. Anele’s exhibition and residency showcase entitled In My Palm. The evening will be accompanied by music by Glass Avery, from their latest release Peace Punks for A Trans Planet.  Provisions provided.

B. Anele (b. 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles, California by way of Houston, Texas. They work in a vast range of media such as painting, self-portraiture, set-design, photography, sculpture, and performance; as well as run their own wearable art-objects line 8 Palms. An overview of their oeuvre would show that there seems to be no form of expression that Anele hasn’t tried and made completely their own. Anele’s work engages in a type of world-building that expresses social ideals through sculptural forms; use of vivid, dialed-in color schemes; bold, thick and confident lines; jazz; motion; fruits; vegetables; elongated forms that bridge surface, space, and time; and parallel roads that lead to the self. In a room full of Anele’s work, one is completely immersed in this world and are perhaps unable to decide if they should resign their old one in order to stay here, amongst the flames, the fruits, the groove. 

At present, Anele has a solo show I DON’T PLAY THAT GAME at the Houston Museum of Contemporary Craft (July 27—Oct 7, 2018). Their work has been shown at spaces such as In Lieu Gallery (LA), Andrew Edlin Gallery (NYC), ATM Gallery (Austin, TX), Jonathan Hopson Gallery (Houston, TX), Capitol Street Gallery (Houston, TX), and Private Eye Gallery (Houston, TX). Some of their work can be found online at https://www.8palms.co.

Conduit is an artist-run art space in a residential neighborhood at the summit of Mount Scott in SE Portland. Conduit functions as an exhibition space; a stage; a garden; a residency; an experiment; a support system; and a collaborative practice. 

Conduit is open by appointment only.

[artandaboutpdx]

Spotlight: Prequel

Could you tell us about Prequel and what it is?

Prequel is a low-residency program for emerging artists living in the Pacific Northwest. The program consists of weekly group discussions, mentoring, critiques and concludes with a final exhibition and publication.

On a more abstract/ fundamental level, Prequel seeks to provide a structure outside of an academic framework to engage conversation and foster connections amongst artists, thinkers, and art organizations.

The structure of the program is beautifully (and perhaps at times frustratingly) amorphous. One-half of the program is comprised of establishing a one-on-one mentorship between the selected eight artist and eight more-established PNW artists. This is a distinct relationship that is dependent upon the two individuals involved to define and cultivate throughout the duration of the program. During its three sessions, Prequel has created 24 mentor/mentee relationships each of them taking distinct form. The second half of Prequel’s structure involves four months of programming consisting of weekly group meetings. The meetings alternate between critiques with guest curators, thematic discussions with guest artists/curators and workshops with guest educators/ artists/ advocates.

Who is involved in Prequel? 

Misha Capecchi: So many people enable Prequel’s operation. Eight artists are selected from an open call for applicants by a three-person jury. The selected artists are paired with eight artist mentors. In addition, there are the many guests, organizations and gallery spaces that contribute to Prequel’s programming and the group’s final and midterm exhibitions. This session eight curators, nine guest artists, two arts organizations, one educator/advocate and three galleries contributed to the programming and exhibitions. On the organizational end of things, this year Prequel was run by us. All three of us are artists. We are Ryan Woodring (Prequel Co-Founder), Garima Thakur (2016 Prequel Artist) and Misha Capecchi (2015 Prequel Mentor). So this year, 42 people were directly involved in making Prequel run (if you count organizations as people- we’re not promoting corporate personhood, promise!)

When did Prequel start and what's the inspiration behind it?

Ryan Woodring: Prequel was co-founded by Alexis (Roberto) and I in 2014 and catalyzed by a Precipice Fund Grant administered by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by Calligram and the Andy Warhol Foundation. We had both moved from Pittsburgh in 2013 and had taken part in two similar programs offered to emerging artists in the actual city of bridges called the Brewhouse Distillery Program, a critique-based low-residency which took part in an old Iron City brewery turned gallery/studios and Flight School, which focused on professional development across disciplines. Moving to a city where neither of us had any real artistic or institutional connections, we noticed how quickly artists in Portland mobilized to make their own small projects and decided we would try the same. For better and worse, Portland distends with short-term artist-run projects that are often well-documented despite their brevity and offer glimpses into what could be longer-term solutions for artist support. Prequel was very much headed towards shuttering up after a busy first year of the program and was self-funded in its second year before receiving a Regional Arts & Culture Council Project Grant to help with this current year. We’ve tried to document the format and underlying principles of the organization so that it can serve as an example for the city years down the road when our current “staff” has all become too rich and famous to keep running it.

What are the reasons and motivating factors for wanting to create a program such as Prequel in Portland?

I would say that all three of us have diverse reasons for wanting to be involved with Prequel.

Misha Capecchi: As a mentor the first year that Ryan and Alexis ran Prequel, I was straight up jealous of the opportunities and programming that the selected eight artists were exposed to. For example, there had been no conversation in my academic training regarding grant writing. I was interested in the idea of Prequel having the ability to host conversations about issues that could not happen/ don’t happen in an academic framework. I wondered for example: As a free program can we discuss issues surrounding money more freely as there are fewer built-in conflicts of interest? I was also wanted to become more involved with Prequel because of sense the comradery that seemed to form amongst the eight artists over the course of the program. I’ve found being an artist to be a generally insular pursuit. I wanted to be involved with something that provided a structure that required artists to: dig-deeper- take time with one-another to grapple with ideas, collectively suffer a little and perhaps come out the other end with a substantial knowing of each other and each other’s work.

Ryan Woodring: I think Misha covered a lot of it. Running a program like this kind of feels like cheating because we’ve essentially invited ourselves into a bunch of critiques with incredibly driven artists and guests whom we would have had a much harder time tracking down independently. I’m about to start a grad program and am nervous because I haven’t had to have my work critiqued in the same way I’ve seen Prequel artists’ critiqued the past three years! But I’m also confident that there are really important issues that still get discussed amongst a small group of artists and this is an uplifting thing to hold onto wherever I end up.

Garima Thakur: Misha and Ryan definitely covered most of it and we all lived vicariously through the prequel participants. I moved to PDX from New York in 2014, being a recent transplant and an Immigrant, a city like PDX can feel insulated. When I applied for Prequel in 2016 I only knew two people in PDX, one was my partner and other my neighbor Anthony. Being a participant at Prequel, I not only met so many wonderful people but also found relationships that support each other within those people. 'Community' is an overused word right now, but it still holds a deep meaning and weight. The paradox of being an artist: we crave insulation and also a sense of belonging. To be a part of a community we also need to be willing to create one and support one another, and Prequel provides and embodies a space to do that.

What type of artists/artwork does Prequel highlight?

MC + RW: This year for the first time, the application stipulated that the applicant should be at least one year removed from extended academic study. Aside from that stipulation, the application is open to anyone to apply, though it was conceived to benefit artists pre-MFA years. The jury this year sought to select a group that was diverse in terms of the ideas they interact with, the media/medium they work in, and their personal experience (education/race/gender/ideas/life and art experience). We introduced an affirmative action framework to guide our jurors in this process. They did a great job! This year’s artists are; Ali Balter, Winnie Black, Marcelo Fontana, Emily Wise, Kevin Holden, Alan Page, Pace Taylor, and Maya Vivas. All eight are wrestling with a unique array of ideas and do so using a variety of mediums. They’ve been a fantastic group to work alongside!

GT: Like any other program Prequel has evolved over the years and has questioned what types of artists it needs to highlight. But I think more than that it is more about who will benefit from a program like Prequel, who can we support and who will add to its dynamic. Each year has been different but this year as M and R Mentioned we made changes.

Why is it important to create and have art programs in your community?

RW: There’s no shortage of art-making, image consuming, and conversations involving art in some form in any American city. I think the important part is the intentionality of the organizations that are channeling and directing these conversations. Some questions I try to center Prequel around::: Are we critically engaging in our field and working to engender impactful conversations amongst our artists? Are we lifting marginalized voices or are we drowning them out? Is our impact felt outside of the art community? How are we best supporting our artists in a way that our small budget and flexible schedule allows us to do differently from larger institutions?

GT: Art world, like any other world, imitates some part of the world we live in--boxes within boxes, patriarchy, class, capital, race, gender biases, white supremacy and many other layered forms of biases. It is a world where idiosyncrasies, fantastical spectacles, abject juxtapositions make profit. We are capitalizing on criticality as well. Hence it is important to ask of ourselves who are we making art programs for? Like R said what is our intentionality and what can we do to break the current dynamics. It is not only important to have art programs but to question what kind of art programs and who benefits from them.

2018 Prequel Resident work from L to R: Ali Balter, Winnie Black, Marcelo Fontana, Kevin Holden, Alan Page, Pace Taylor, Emily Wise, and Maya Vivas

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced with starting your own art program?

MC: Money and time, it's a predictable answer but that’s it and it’s real. As organizers, we all have our own artistic practice and day jobs that we juggle. Running Prequel takes time and a lot of favors asking- a lot of other people’s time. Money is a limiting factor, this year we were fortunate to receive a project grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council which helps a lot. RACC is a fantastic resource for artists trying to do/ make anything in PNW. That being said, we generally run the program at a deficit because we value what it offers us and because we believe that it is valuable to the artists that participate.

GT: M covered most of it, but for me, our very very long meetings of programming and evolving our curriculum was the most enriching and challenging part which involved a lot of time and collective thinking. For the four-month program, almost 8 months are spent pulling our teeth, laughing and thinking through all aspects of art making, what would be beneficial to the group, what are our intentionalities and interests as well.

What’s exciting coming up with Prequel?

The group’s final exhibition, View From Here opens September 15th (6-8 PM) at c3:initiative in St. Johns! In addition on October 6th (11 AM-1 PM), there be a closing, book release and gallery tour lead by the artists at c3.

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 15th from 6-8 PM

Performance at 7 PM

Book Release & Closing Reception: Saturday, October 6th from 11-1 PM

Artist-led exhibition tour at 11 AM

That itchy feeling when you pick up an old book that smells weird. A broken down 97’ Saturn full of a surprisingly roomy nothingness plus glitter. A smudged cloud between Alicia Silverstone’s pedicure. A turtleneck with a big hole in the wrong place. Soft between the elbows. A landline no one wants the number for. The post-game birthday bash backyard bbq block party family fun box. A representação que vira vestigio.

For the past six months, these eight artists have produced work and engaged in ongoing dialogue while participating in Prequel. Prequel was founded in 2014 as a free, low-residency program for emerging artists living in the Pacific Northwest. The program consists of weekly group discussions, mentoring, and critiques and concludes with a final exhibition and publication.

Ali Balter approaches themes of empathy, intimacy, apathy, and exchange with naïveté and intuition. Her work spans various disciplines; primarily sculpture, performance, installation, sound and social practice. Ali received a BFA in Painting from Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2013. She lives and works in Portland, where she is also a curator and program coordinator for Outwork, a multimedia fundraising exhibition project.

Winnie Black is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. She uses video, sound, paint, and performance to create an immersive alternate reality where the idea of self can be explored and empowered beyond the confines of societal expectation and pressure.

Marcelo Fontana: The central subject of my research is the interaction, understanding and relationship between people and images. It ranges from trying to interpret how the massive production of images affects and influences our world, to working with archive pictures and exploring concepts of aura and soul. Time and location are what move my work, specifically how time affects a certain place and how it’s recorded and documented. My goal is to provide a new function for images and objects that are immersed in a “waiting state”. My work is constructed either by the accumulation or absence. By overlapping photographs, pictures of blanket slides, images bought at flea markets and old photograph machines I create spaces where the viewer is invited to reflect about what photography has to say. The intention is to create a bridge between the past and the present in a nonlinear way, creating not just parallels between different times but also between the latency of the images; analog and digital, fast and slow changes and the old and new.

Kevin Holden utilizes dissonance, noise, and harmony to explore and interrogate experiences and assumptions regarding sexual, bodily, and political desire. They have recently performed at S1, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Portland State University; and have recently exhibited their work at First Brick, the White Gallery, UNA Gallery, the Tailgate-Based Art Festival, the Archer Gallery, and the Evergreen State College. They are co-editor of LOCUSTS: A Post-Queer Nation Zine. They have recently finished studying at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Alan Page ( aka [sic][redacted] ) is a glitch and new media artist who enjoys decontextualizing, remixing, and misusing everything from overheard conversations to catalogs to various softwares. Through physical media and digital manipulation, they create visual disruptions and exploit the “something’s gone wrong” itchiness that comes from unexpected results. Influenced by (and a lover of) the old, broken, ruined, and far too lazy to fix, Page creates layered, sometimes dissonant visuals that arguably may or may not be accidents. Page received their BA in Visual Communication from Savannah College of Art and Design and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Pace Taylor is an artist working and breathing in Portland, OR, centering their work in queerness. Using illustration, the written word, and uncomfortable human interactions as tools, they build out impressions of identity. Pace scrutinizes intimate gendered moments—compromising and/or dissonant— daily moments, and outputs illustrated abstractions of that paused space. Pace is emotionally preoccupied with the busyness of intersecting identities and chooses to examine and to deconstruct how those identities operate under the gaze of two extremes: desire and disgust, as well as the in between. Pace received their BFA in Digital Art from the University of Oregon in 2015.

Emily Wise is the daughter of a truck driver and a new age dental lab assistant. (Obviously divorced.) Through building bridges between sacredness and some sort of blue-collar profanity, she experiments with varying visual styles to explore the complications and contradictions of meaning-making and personal narrative.

Apart from spontaneous rituals and collaborating with the wind, her works on paper illustrate the space where one’s internal world of psychological processes (namely emotion) and the external environment meet and transfer information. Since the completion of her BFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2015, Emily has been living and working in Portland, Oregon asking strangers how they feel.

Maya Vivas (b. 1990, Miami Fl) is a ceramic artist residing in Portland Oregon. Their ceramic sculptures have been featured in an array of galleries in Portland Or, Los Angeles & New Zealand, including venues in association with NCECA (The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts). In addition to being an active member at Radius Community Art Studio, they are currently Co-Director of Ori Gallery. Whose mission is to redefine “the white cube” through amplifying the voices of Queer and Trans Artists of color, community organizing and mobilization through the arts. Maya’s work captures textures from flora, mineral and the human body, re-translating these motifs into newly invented forms that are alive, sensual and dynamic. Through these textures, they explore concepts of race, identity and gender as filtered through their own experience as a queer person of color. Through push, pull & mark making within clay, they sculpt with shadow and light as an exploration of the senses, creating folds, complexity and narrative. Maya believes that the beautiful, carnal and heartbreaking nature of clay, is a direct reflection of the human experience.

The exhibition will run from September 15th- October 6th, 2018 and can be viewed at the opening, closing or anytime during c3:initiative’s gallery hours: Wednesday-Saturday from 12- 6 PM. c3:initiative is located at N. Chicago Avenue, Portland, OR 97203

View From Here and the accompanying publication is made possible with the generous support of the Regional Arts & Culture Council. 

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"I Love You, I'm Leaving" by Matt Eich

Touch

Curated by Christopher Rauschenberg

September 6-September 30, 2018

Opening reception: September 6th, from 6-9 PM

I Love You, I'm Leaving

Matt Eich

 September 6-September 30, 2018

Opening reception: First Thursday, September 6th, from 6- 9 PM

Artist Talk: Saturday, September 8th at 3 PM

 “This series borrows from personal experience, and the visual language of every day in order to create a fictional account that mirrors my reality. Photographs are reductions, distillations, half-truths, and complete fabrications. They can only describe the surface of things, while I am interested in the intangible – memory and emotional resonance.” Matt Eich photographed I Love You, I’m Leaving during a difficult time in his family’s life: his parents separated after 33 years of marriage, while his siblings were experiencing drastic changes in their personal lives and he and his wife and two children moved to a new city. This emotionally-charged black-and-white series is not strictly a memoir but exists somewhere in-between documentary and fiction. For Eich, the title reflects a constant in his life, which he calls “the rhythm of my peripatetic life.” He notes that “it holds true when I leave my family to photograph strangers and leave strangers to return home.” Matt Eich (b. 1986) studied photojournalism at Ohio University and holds an MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School’s International Limited-Residency Program. He is a Professional Lecturer of Photography at The George Washington University and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife and two daughters. Matt’s work has been widely exhibited and received numerous grants and recognitions, including PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch, the Joop Swart Masterclass, an Aaron Siskind Fellowship, and two Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography. Matt’s prints are held in the permanent collections of The Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The New York Public Library, Chrysler Museum of Art and others. This is Eich’s second solo show at Blue Sky.

Blue Sky Gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday from 12-5 PM

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"Inner Weather" Claiborne Colombo

Inner Weather

Claiborne Colombo

Opening Reception: Friday, September 14th, 6-10 PM

Artist Talk: Saturday, September 15th, from 12-1 PM

Inspired by maps and the natural world that surrounds her in the Pacific Northwest, Claiborne Colombo translates her experiences around place into deconstructed landscapes using a range of techniques and expressions -- intricate lines, guttural marks, bold colors and organic forms. Working on both canvas and paper, she uses transparent layers of acrylic, graphite, charcoal, and pastels which she applies with both spontaneity and precision. The layers intersect and combine to reveal the stratification of her process without compromising the raw nature of each material.  Claiborne uses colors that flow, vibrate and bounce off one another. They act as a compass, helping the eye navigate through the layered terrain. In play with the swaths of color are more detailed marks. Her marks capture movement, subtle shifts, and drastic divides. Throughout her work, lines and shapes are repeated and transformed, flowing across the expanse. Some of her marks are planned, but at times, her hands work faster than her mind with each mark informing the next, creating an organic and meditative flow.  Altogether, these elements form a dynamic language that guides the narrative of each abstracted map, building a journey full of fluctuations, pauses, crossroads and moments of discovery.

1122 gallery is located at 1122 SE 88th Ave. in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. This is accessible by bike route, as well as bus lines 15 and 72. Please keep in mind this is a residential neighborhood when parking. The gallery is ADA accessible.

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"Nowhere Flower" by Lila Jarzombek​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Nowhere Flower

Lila Jarzombe

August 12, 2018 - September 30, 2018

Opening reception: Sunday, August 12 from 3-6 PM

Artist Statement:

I enjoy walking in the landscape, particularly looking at how other people live and utilize space. I take photographic records of ephemera, detritus, color, patterns, material and natural forms. Using technology, I edit, combine, and manipulate the photos. This allows them to become distorted, free of their original reference and completely new. Sometimes these photo manipulations/collages are ends in and of themselves. Sometimes they inform the basis for a painting.

The paintings are usually worked out over an extended period of time, resulting in something that is unexpected and always subject to change. Photos are used as reference and inspiration throughout the process, but the paintings take on their own life and sense of place. They do not point elsewhere, but rather constitute their own fields of forces, they have their own connective tissues. Their own strange phenomena.

Artist Bio:

Lila Jarzombek was born and raised in Ashaway, RI. She currently lives and works in Portland, OR.

LOWELL is open Wednesday—Saturday from 12-7 PM & Sunday 12-5 PM

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"Utopia Without You" by Tabitha Nikolai

Utopia Without You 

Tabitha Nikolai

September 6, 2018 - October 13, 2018.

Opening reception: Thursday, September 6, 2018, from 6–8 PM

Artist lead gallery walkthrough: Saturday, October 13 at 1 PM

Williamson | Knight is pleased to announce Utopia Without You, an exhibition of new sculptural works by Tabitha Nikolai including a custom gaming PC with unique controller, a wargaming diorama, and digital 3d environments with original score by Rook. This project is funded in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council. 

Utopia Without You is an elegy for American liberalism using the novel and nested forms of insulation that have helped make its death so palatable. Fashioned as a kind of gamer den of the apocalypse it ruminates on trans-pessimism and isolation as a Pyrrhic survival technique. Nestled within the velvet trap of the den there is freedom from visibility: both the threat of violence, and the horrors of being consumed like so many ill-digested ally cookies. Conversely, the Skinner box of the digital attenuates one to some combination of viciousness and vapidity. This is the bind, finding human connection in a way that acknowledges and transcends the pain of the real while evading the hunter's snares.   Special thanks to Jesse Mejia, Francesca Frattaroli and the PCC Cascadia Fab Lab for their technical prowess and generosity. Thanks to Matt Leavitt for his assistance fabricating the controller base.    Tabitha Nikolai is a trashgender gutter elf and low-level cybermage raised in Salt Lake City and currently based in Portland, Oregon. Her artwork manifests as text, videogames, cosplay, and earnest rites of suburban occult. She is sometimes a stray cat and an attractive nuisance who is interested in reinvention, resistance, resilience, and making pocket worlds with people she loves. In the past she has taught at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University, but is now a recovering academic. Her work has been shown at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Vox Populi in Philadelphia; and Ganka Gallery in Tokyo. She hopes you're doing okay. Williamson | Knight is a collaboration between Iris Williamson and John Knight.

WK is open Thursday–Saturday from 12–5 PM

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We have 10 copies of Amy Bay’s Limited Edition Artist Print left in stock! 🎯 These #risograph #prints were made in conjunction with our ‘2018 Artist Collaboration Art Guides.’ Only 25 copies were made. You can find the Summer issue featuring Amy Bay now at our sponsors art spaces in Portland. The print is $30, comes with an the Summer issue and includes free shipping. DM with email purchase. Proceeds are split between the artist and our organization so we can continue projects like our Art Guides. 🎈✨ (at Outlet)

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At Private Places @_private_places_ closing reception yesterday evening for (re)buffer. #artandaboutpdx #contemporaryart #privateplaces #artspace #projectspace #pdx (at Portland, Oregon)

[artandaboutpdx]

At Private Places @_private_places_ closing reception yesterday evening for (re)buffer. #artandaboutpdx #contemporaryart #privateplaces #artspace #projectspace #pdx (at Portland, Oregon)

[artandaboutpdx]

Today & tomorrow are the last days to see Mira Dancy at lumber room. Hours are Friday & Saturday from 12-5 PM. #artandaboutpdx #miradancy #painting #installation #lumberroom #contemporaryart #onviewpdx #artonviewpdx #lumberroompdx (at lumber room)

[artandaboutpdx]

Images from “Children of Revulsion” curated by Tabitha Nikolai @tabby_twitchit is currently on view at @killjoypdx—they’ll be having a #closingreception this Saturday, June 16, 2018, from 7-9 PM. There will be performances by Laurence Myers Reese and VR by Stephanie Mendoza. ✨📱Check out our interview with BriAnna Rosen, founding member of Killjoy Collective to learn more about the art space, the type of artists and work they highlight and what it’s like to run an art space outside of traditional and patriarchal art space models. #artandaboutpdx #galleryspotlight #interview #killjoycollective #portland #pdx #feminism #artspace #artistcollective #savethedate (at Portland, Oregon)

[artandaboutpdx]

Images from “Children of Revulsion” curated by Tabitha Nikolai @tabby_twitchit is currently on view at @killjoypdx—they’ll be having a #closingreception this Saturday, June 16, 2018, from 7-9 PM. There will be performances by Laurence Myers Reese and VR by Stephanie Mendoza. ✨📱Check out our interview with BriAnna Rosen, founding member of Killjoy Collective to learn more about the art space, the type of artists and work they highlight and what it’s like to run an art space outside of traditional and patriarchal art space models. #artandaboutpdx #galleryspotlight #interview #killjoycollective #portland #pdx #feminism #artspace #artistcollective #savethedate (at Portland, Oregon)

[artandaboutpdx]

Images from “Children of Revulsion” curated by Tabitha Nikolai @tabby_twitchit is currently on view at @killjoypdx—they’ll be having a #closingreception this Saturday, June 16, 2018, from 7-9 PM. There will be performances by Laurence Myers Reese and VR by Stephanie Mendoza. ✨📱Check out our interview with BriAnna Rosen, founding member of Killjoy Collective to learn more about the art space, the type of artists and work they highlight and what it’s like to run an art space outside of traditional and patriarchal art space models. #artandaboutpdx #galleryspotlight #interview #killjoycollective #portland #pdx #feminism #artspace #artistcollective #savethedate (at Portland, Oregon)