Brad Carlile Photo Blog

At Blackfish Gallery (420 NW 9th Ave, Portland, OR), is a show of the recent art graduates of 2009. This show has works from 29 graduates, who represent the best of their classes from 15 Oregon colleges and universities. Below are three of my favorites.

First I start out with the mandala-like photo of Christian Rogers, “His & Hers (Predominantly His)”.

Below is the detail from “His & Hers (Predominantly His)”  Here you get a better view of the lozenges that radiate out from the center.  Images so thin they meld in layers.

Next is Patricia Patino, whose work “March 24”

Finally I loved this one by Leah Morris. Such a wondeful gift of poison for cut little bunnies.

I also liked Sanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt “Everything Changes” and Caitlin Ducey “Shapes.”

In the window project at PDX Contemporary Art (925 NW Flanders, Portland OR) is Brennan Conaway’s “In Joyful Anticipation of Catastrophic Ruin…” I didn’t capture the full title, maybe ends with “first colony”(?).  This sculpture is a celebration of a future cultural demise, to facilitate a consumerist-free rebirth.

In the gallery at PDX Contemporary Art (925 NW Flanders, Portland OR) is Wes Mills’ Mondrian’s Forest.  I’m often drawn to work in grids.  The repetition of work with variations continues to build upon itself.  Each individual framed piece is subtle work on paper that is drawn, stained and wrinkled.

Wes Mills is part of the NYC group show Master Drawings New York: Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Wes Mills atDickinson (19 East 66th Street, NYC). He has work in the collections Whitney Museum and MoMA (NYC)

Detail of Wes Mills’ Mondrian’s Forest.  Here you can see the descending lines and the effects they have on the paper and the effect of the paper on them.  Also at this show is the work “Pie Set” which has sketches of pies/disks with wedges removed from them are superimposed and interlaced.  Again the paper and the drawing effect one another.

Blue Sky Gallery (122 NW 8th Ave, Portland OR), has a strong combination this month. Ferit Kuyas has wonderful beautiful prints – STUNNING WORK.  Colors and images are luxurious and often soft.  But the fog and the massive buildings hit you with what we have wrought by rebuilding our land and smogging our air.

Postscript: According to the artist this is actually fog not smog.  I was mislead by the smog that I saw in Beijing in my trip to China in 2005 (few snaps from that trip).  Read more at the Oregonian about an interview with Ferit Kuyas: http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2009/07/photos_capture_a_foggy_chinese.html

Artist and frequent Blogger Amy Stein is in the back gallery of Blue Sky Gallery.

Her works are modern dioramas set out in our landscape.  These constructed  scenes she writes, “explore our paradoxical relationship with the “wild” and how our conflicting impulses continue to evolve and alter the behavior of both humans and animals.”  She continues, they “…are constructed based on real stories from local newspapers and oral histories of intentional and random interactions between humans and animals.”

Garden was a hilarious look at an American garden that is a comment on  protectionism and created nature.

Watering Hole is an image of Amy’s that you may have seen around the web.  It is also on the cover of her book “Domesticated” that was the winner of Photolucida’s Critical Mass book award.

Michael Kenna has another strong show at Hartman Fine Art (154 NW 8th, Portland OR).  His black&white work is powerful as always.  You can see why they grace many museum collections.  But see them here in Portland in a great space.

Eva Lake has a very nice interview of Michael Kenna on KBOO, hear it at: http://kboo.fm/audio/by/title/michael_kenna

Allen Cox work is showing at Augen Gallery (716 NW Davis, Portland OR).  Allen is a well-known Pacific Northwest abstract painter.  Below is the painting “Landslide”.  I was also drawn to “Uncertainty Principle” which I believe is what they used on the show postcard.

I didn’t get any snapshots of Akahashi Murakami’s lithographs, but they are well worth a visit to the gallery in their own right.

Butters Gallery (520 NW Davis, 2nd flr, Portland OR) has a show called NEW DISCOVERIES, and two of them are discoveries for me.

Nicolas Guerrero magical color… trippy mandalas.  I liked them a lot.  Bold saturated colors and interesting shapes. These gain extra luminosity since they are face-mounted plexi which gives both a softer and stronger impression.

Here are two more… Bold primary colors that can fill one’s imagination.

Also at Butters is Jiro Yonezawa’s sculptures. He combines “traditional Japanese weaving combined with ideas of modern Western sculpture.”

I particularly liked the thin space filling works like the image below.

Matthew Craig paintings were also captivating. He is recent graduate from the University of Oregon.  In this work we have layers of bold geometries with dare I say pin-stripping squiggles.  It works with great effect.

He writes, “The lines shift, the colors recede or advance, the space is at once flat and deep. Both space and color are contingent upon the formal choices Craig makes; color is affected by its surroundings, and the color and structure of the lines creates the space. The structures in the paintings never seem quite stable because of this shifting of space, this vibration of color. The work is very much about the present moment, the viewers direct engagement with the work, and their immediate perceptual responses.”

Below is one more…

It was a good set of 1st Thursday shows. Stop by any of these Portland Galleries and more to really spend some time with these works in person (and without the opening festivities).

Tags: 1st Thur, art, openings, photography, Portland