Portland Mercury: Visual Art

Elastic Ocean

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Homeless camp Dignity Village gets a new coat of paint. by Matt Stangel THE SHARP, sour smell of the neighboring compost facility hangs over Dignity Village, and a cat prowls the labyrinthine series of raised community vegetable gardens. Dignity, situated west of the airport, is the country's first city-sanctioned homeless encampment, home to nearly 60 people transitioning out of street life, and right now street artist Klutch and his girlfriend Taylor Stevenson are painting a maritime scene on Dignity Village Chairman Randy Curl's house. It's an image Curl requested, and when completed it'll…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Object Narrative

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

Appendix Project Space lives up to its promise to present challenging conceptual work with Material Affair. by Matt Stangel BENJAMIN YOUNG'S Material Affair goes like this: sparse towers of weather-gnawed wood stand in the center of the Appendix Project Space garage. Against a white wall, half of a frayed bungee cord is in a scant 3D triptych with a piece of mesh and a pouch of welding sticks. A multi-dimensional explosion of steel rods joined with twine spans across a wall and between the ceiling and floor. At the heart of each study within Material Affair, Young says he's…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

It's Electric

news@portlandmercury.com (Marjorie Skinner) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

China Design Now peels back the curtain on a newly thriving artistic culture. by Marjorie Skinner The electric pink walls throughout the Portland Art Museum's China Design Now exhibit indicate the youthful, hyper-stylized mood of its contents. China is on a design high after decades of socialism—the very idea of someone working as an artist or designer outside of a government mandate is less than a generation old there. As a result, the newfound freedom of expression is rapidly changing the culture. Outsider associations with sweatshop manufacture, iffy sanitation, and sinister government actions are giving way…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Rendering the Invisible

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Artist Joe Ryckebosch captures time-based patterns in his work. by Matt Stangel We live in a continuum of pattern and design. Not only a world studded with city grids and advertisements, but one where even the water under those trees is drawn upward in vein-like patterns. And it's these unseen patterns—the water entering the tree—that Joe Ryckebosch is interested in highlighting with his most recent exhibit at the café Half & Half, entitled Memory Screens of Things Seen and Unseen. Ryckebosch says he "remixes" found photos of animals and wilderness, laying architectural…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Field Trip

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Shine a Light invites audiences to an unconventional exploration of the art museum. by Matt Stangel ON SATURDAY, September 19, the Portland Art Museum will open its doors for Shine a Light: A Night at the Museum. This special event will showcase the work of MFA candidates from Portland State University's Art and Social Practice program—attendees are invited to check out the students' installations, tours, workshops, and performances. Coming on the heels of the many participatory Time-Based Art Festival happenings (and the hip-infused art therein), the event sounds like its echo, though with a one-night-only, arts…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

De-Sexying Sexy

news@portlandmercury.com (Matt Stangel) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Bobbi Woods uses blocking and replication to subvert iconic imagery. by Matt Stangel Bobbi Woods is a conceptual pop artist of multiples. Using old movie posters as the base images for her art, the LA artist applies spray enamel to obstruct specific portions of an image. Her current show at Fourteen30 Contemporary reduces multiples of classic sexual images into frustratingly vague—yet intriguing—anti-sex compositions. For instance, Woods' series titled As Long As is constructed from multiple copies of a poster of Marilyn Monroe reclining on a pool chair, one leg in the air as…]]> [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]