Tag: charcoal

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Art and Writing During the Pandemic: Celebrating the Write Around Portland Partnership

It has been more than one year since Write Around Portland and the Portland Art Museum began collaborating on weekly, art-inspired writing prompts to sustain our souls and our sense of connection during the pandemic. Write Around Portland staff and writing workshop facilitators have created over 60 writing prompts inspired by works in the Portland…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Samantha Wall

“The shadow is both a part of our identity and apart from it. It is our counterpart and sometimes the truer part.” —Samantha Wall, 2021 Flayed is a drawing from Samantha Wall’s series titled, Shame on Me, hauntingly rendered as a self-portrait silhouette and shadow. Though much of the figure’s details are unknown, Wall beautifully…  Read more

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Write Around PAM: Anne Ryan

Untitled, Anne Ryan, 11 ¾ x 15 ¾ inches, oil and charcoal on mounted board. A horizontal, rectangular painting featuring abstract brushwork and thick, textured paint application in brown, yellow, orange, blue, gray, and black. At the center are a grouping of narrow, vertical blocks of color. The orange, brown, and yellow areas are thickly and roughly painted with charcoal line patterns created on top of the paint. Two bright yellow vertical blocks have vertical black charcoal lines. Between the two yellow are a dark terracotta block and a deep muted burgundy block. To the left of this central grouping are two more terracotta shapes, one with diagonal charcoal stripes. At far right of the center grouping is a deep blue, almost black shape with flecks of red next to a thin brushstroke of dark paint with X markings made of charcoal. Beneath the vertical shapes are undulating black brush strokes that seem to bookend the central brushwork. Gray, white, and blue paintwork surround the central shapes blending into taupes and whites at the outer edges and top. Paint is applied thickly and creates a highly textured painting.

The winter chill has descended on much of Oregon, with cold rain, clouds, snow, and wind greeting us most days. Today we are finding some warmth and light in this piece by Anne Ryan. We invite you to take some time to write and reflect on the ways you are nurturing warmth and light in…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Elizabeth Malaska

Still Life on War Rug, Elizabeth Malaska, 50 ¼ x 40 ¼ inches, oil, Flashe, charcoal, and graphite on canvas. A vertical rectangular painting of a female figure lying on a rug with her legs raised over her head, balancing a vase on one foot with her arms wrapped around her head. The figure is positioned so the viewer sees her from the front and upside down with her head closest to the bottom of the painting. The leg at left is raised straight into the air and the other is bent with her knee forward, towards the viewer. She balances a long necked, purple vase on this foot. Her arms are positioned over her head and lay on the rug. She is nude from the waist up and wears a light purple skirt with a red lining and red undergarments. Her skin color is creamy white with grey shading. The artist varies the style of brushwork on the figure from smooth and blended to thickly applied with broad strokes. Her face has dark heavy brows, a wide flat mouth, and one undefined eye. She lies on intricately patterned rug with various geometric shapes in taupe, gray, peach, and black. The figure is in a room with a checkerboard tile floor depicted in pale pink and marbled beige, gray, and white. At the rear of the room is a wood panel wall painted in browns with dark lines suggesting wood grain. At right of the wall is a dark doorway and at left is an empty beige bookcase. The walls are pale pink and the ceiling is a grayish beige.

“Elizabeth Malaska has continued her focus in painting with a feminist view exploring the place of the female body. Oftentimes looking to art history and the female form, Malaska nearly always references these moments while contextualizing them through a contemporary lens. Through this way of work, Malaska addresses the gaze, the subject of power and…  Read more