Portland's June First Thursday Gallery Openings for August

Portland’s June First Thursday Gallery Openings for August

Aug 4th, 2007 by Brad

This was a busy 1st Thursday for me, I wanted to see various openings and also attend my two openings this month at Mark Woolley Gallery and Pushdot Studio, but more on those shows at the end of this all.

My first stop of the night was at Elizabeth Leach (417 N.W. 9th Avenue, Portland OR).

I had been hearing about Joe Thurston’s new work, so I was waiting to see if it stood up. Yow, it stood up and shouted! It reaches out across the room and then draws one in for an intimate look. The color the texture worked wonderfully. detail below…

The show is called Then, Quite Suddenly, We Were Simply No Longer Anywhere These works are amazing hand-carved relief paintings. This work speaks to me on more levels than his past “flayed” portraits. Yes, go. Enjoy.

Jerry Iverson’s continues his “Nerve Block” series at Pulliam Deffenbaugh (929 NW Flanders, Portland OR) builds on his “Black and White” series. I can now see Jerry was just getting warmed up last year. “Nerve Block” is show was much more powerful to me than his last show. All of the works are more interesting and entrancing. Jerry Iverson I really love where he is heading and I can’t wait to see more. I know I’ll be going back to this month to see it again.

The group show “true bearing” at PDX Contemporary Art (925 NW Flanders, Portland OR) had some interesting works, but it didn’t have any particular standouts for me. The show statement said, “True bearing” is about living one’s life in a way that shows faith in the world, and about ideas and work coming from positive and hopeful places. It is about the beauty and pleasure that can occur when you let your mind loose to follow your own path, whether it takes you on well-travelled routes or off the grid. It is not about the grand gesture, but about the personal and day-to-day living and work adding up to something of meaning.”

Maybe it just wasn’t quite personal enough for me or maybe I rushed it.

After that I went over to the DeSoto building. Not too many changes, as expected, since the grand opening.

I finally dashed over to see my work at the group show at Pushdot Studio’s (830 NW 14th Ave, Portland, OR). It was nice to see a crowd gathered around my work when I walked in.

This show is the 5th Anniversary group show, with the theme of “5”. Some took 5 very literally, for me my image “Day Amalgam 4” was shot over 5 hours.

At the opening it was good to talk to Cherie Hiser and Pamela Creevey again. Below is Pamela and her work.

The Pushdot Show is open Aug 1 to Aug 31, Mon-Fri, 8:30-5. The best of luck to Lincoln and Pushdot as they move to their new SE Portland location in September. Pushdot gave me my first 1st Thursday solo show in 2003, I really appreciated that. At that show over 200 people came opening night and I sold half of my work.

Then I ran across the river to see my other group show. Last week when I was reviewing my portfolio with Mark Woolley, he asked to have my work “Day Amalgam 5” in this “Dig It” group show.

In the image above, “Day Amalgam 5 is the 40″x30” image of the tree behind the statue on the right. A few more images from the show below.