Tag: Daily Art Moment

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Daily Art Moment: George Johanson

City with Small Skull, George Johanson, 20 x 27 15/16 inches, etching and relief on paper. A horizontal, rectangular, black, white and gray work of a dramatic landscape showing a swirling sky over a cityscape with large trees in the foreground. The etching is divided into three sections by two narrow vertical strips of solid black. Another narrow band runs across the top of the work and a wider band of black runs along the bottom. This suggests the viewer is looking out at the scene through a window. A large silhouetted fir tree almost fills the window section at left with smaller, irregularly shaped fir trees featuring in the lower portion of the other two sections. The turbulent sky fills the upper two thirds of the work. Shades of gray and black represent swirling clouds and night sky. Nestled between the sky and the trees in the foreground is a view of city rooftops, a bridge and a distant Mount St. Helens. At center diagonal etched lines rise from a spot beyond the bridge and appear to drift off to the right. A coyote skull sits at bottom left as if on the ledge of the windowsill.

“For the last week, thick yellow smoke from wildfires across the West Coast has choked the Portland skies. I am reminded of George Johanson’s evocative print City with Small Skull in which the swirling clouds suggest an unnamed menace. The ghostly silhouettes of fir trees sway in the night, bent by the strong wind that…  Read more

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Daily art Moment: Sanford Biggers

A square photo with a background of blue sky and fluffy, white clouds. Superimposed over this are the words “just us” using a thick font that features more blue sky and white clouds. Along the bottom edge are the words “Plan Your Vote.org”. “Plan” and “Vote” are in white font, “Your” and “.Org” are in dark blue font.

PLAN YOUR VOTE is a 2020 visual-artist initiative from VOTE.ORG that encourages and empowers citizens to exercise their right to vote. It’s urgent to PLAN YOUR VOTE. In Oregon, ensure that you receive your mail-in ballot by following these steps by October 13. ☑ Register to vote if you haven’t already.☑ Verify your registration.☑ Check your absentee…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Kristan Kennedy

W.L.L.B.L.N.D.N.E.S., Kristan Kennedy, 50 x 42 inches, ink, dye, bleach on linen. A photo of a vertical rectangular length of cloth hung from the upper corners with the rest left to hang freely. The mostly indigo cloth has a round bright yellow circle near the top at center. The circle shows uneven color with a crescent shape suggesting removed color on its right side. Around the circle, a halo of white bleaching radiates outward from the yellow sphere. Larger areas of white drip from the bottom of the sphere. To the left is a short, thick blob of the same bright yellow. A horizontal bleached line runs behind the circle from left to right angling downward at far right. Just to the right of the sphere two thick bleached lines run vertically ending a third from the bottom in splatters. They are bisected by another horizontal line under the sphere. At left starting at the two horizontal lines, a thick bleached area travels downward widening into a wedge shape and continues to the very bottom of the fabric. It is unevenly bleached with some indigo showing through. White splatter marks decorate the bottom third of the cloth. At the upper right corner of the work, splotches of white are overlaid with a lighter blue color. The fabric is wrinkled and worn with frayed edges and loose threads. The borders of the cloth are uneven.

“Kristan Kennedy often creates abstract paintings on loose linen, washing them numerous times, up to 20–30 washes, wearing away the fabric and embedding the paint deeper into the fibers. Kennedy’s works are strong reminders of Helen Frankenthaler’s (1928–2011) paintings in her use of unprimed canvas to stain the fabric with pigment. Kennedy’s work can be…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Buzzy Sullivan

North Fork Toutle River through smoke from the Diamond Creek wildfire, approximately six miles northwest of Mount St. Helens, Buzzy Sullivan, 25 ½ x 31 ½ inches, archival pigment print. A photograph taken at great height looking down on a landscape that is brown and dry with pockets of green vegetation and hazy with smoke. A dry, horizontal riverbed is seen beginning at the middle of the photo traveling left to the edge of the print. It cuts down and back towards the center and ends at bottom center divided into a fork. The riverbed reveals layers of eroded earth giving a terraced and jagged appearance. The surrounding landscape is mostly cocoa browns, with lighter shades of tan and rusty reddish tones. There are clusters of dark brownish-green trees and shrubs near the river’s banks. Lone trees and brush dot the scene as well. In the upper third of the print, sloping cliff faces and low lying mounded hills stretch to the top of the print. These appear hazier further in the distance. The upper right corner suggests the heaviest area of smoke with the distant mountains appearing through a thick haze of beige smoke. The foreground, at the bottom of the print, shows the depth of the forked riverbed in deep shadow with no discernible water flowing. A large, dark fissure juts off to the lower right.

Our thoughts are with the one-tenth of Oregon’s population displaced and affected by wildfires. “The smoke and strange light currently blanketing the landscape brought to mind this photograph on view in our exhibition Volcano! Mount St. Helens in Art. It shows nature rebounding in the Toutle River Valley thirty-seven years after the area was scoured…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Lewis W. Hine

Lewis W. Hine, Top of the Mooring Mast, Empire State Building, 4 7/8 × 3 ¾ inches, gelatin silver print. A vertical rectangular, black and white photo of three light skinned men working on steel girders above a hazy cityscape. Three wide girders run parallel and diagonally from the upper left to the lower right. Other beams form a triangular structure near the upper center. One man kneels in this triangle while watching another to the right as he leans over appearing to rivet a beam below. The third man is standing at center right on a wooden plank that balances on a lower beam and juts out into the open air. The men wear work clothes of coveralls, boots, and flat caps. They do not wear safety gear. City buildings can be just made out through the haze behind them.

“This photograph, made nearly 1,240 feet above the busy streets of midtown Manhattan, depicts steelworkers assembling the Empire State Building’s mooring mast—the top of the skyscraper that was originally meant to be a loading point for dirigible passengers. It is an ideal image to consider on #LaborDay, a federal holiday honoring workers and the results of…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Sang-Ah Choi

Sang-Ah Choi (Korean, active United States, born 1971), All you can eat—Holiday everyday, Transcontinental flower and bird painting: NY to OR, Rainbow, 70 x 128 x 7 inches, mixed media. A photograph of three wide, white horizontal shelves each containing a different assortment of objects against a white wall. The top shelf holds stuffed animals and plush toys representing holidays beginning with Valentine’s Day: three teddy bears, a pink frog, a Tigger and a dog. Next is Easter with six stuffed rabbits and teddy bears with bunny ears. Five bears and a dog in red, white and blue representing the Fourth of July are followed by five plush toys representing Halloween pumpkins and witches. A turkey and pilgrims represent Thanksgiving. Finally, five toy penguins, snowmen, dogs and a Santa represent Christmas. The middle shelf holds fourteen highly detailed and layered paper dioramas. They show highways intersecting, billboards, fast food and hotel signs, along with state birds and highway markers. The bottom shelf holds an array of breakfast cereal boxes arranged according to the rainbow. They stand side by side, facing front and begin with Lucky Charms (red), continuing on to Fruit Loops (red-orange), Reese’s Puffs (orange), Mini Wheats (light orange), Honey Comb (deep yellow), Cheerios (yellow), Apple Jacks (green), Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (green), Cookie Crisp (blue), Rice Krispies (blue), Frosted Cheerios (deep blue), Frosted Flakes (deep blue), Multi-Grain Cheerios (purple), Raisin Bran (violet). 2 and 3. Each diorama is structured like a tall box sitting on end with the front and top removed. Inside, cut out shapes depict various things: overlapping roadways, highway signs, billboards, state birds and flowers and vehicles. The shapes are composed of heavy paper or cardboard and are layered to achieve a three-dimensional effect going from low in the front to higher at the back of the box. The shapes are brightly colored and solid or black cut out outlines of the object they depict. Each diorama is crammed with images so close inspection is necessary to discern which state is represented.

“Sang-ah Choi’s installation ‘All you can eat—Holiday everyday, Transcontinental flower and bird painting: NY to OR, Rainbow’ chronicles the artist’s cross-country road trip from New York to Oregon. As a foreign-born American, Choi’s installation reflects the dissonance in understanding the American landscape and culture through consumption and excess. An installation of three shelves, the top…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Childe Hassam

Childe Hassam. Oregon Still Life, 25 x 30 ¼ inches, oil on canvas. A painting of an assortment of fruit laid out on a round, dark brown table, the edges of which are mostly out of frame. At top, at 11 and 12 o’clock, are a glass bowl with a tall stand brimming with yellow apples that sits beside a squat, silver bowl holding green, purple, and red grapes. Just below the glass bowl are more yellow apples, some with a hint of pink. Further down the painting and scattered over the table are deep blueish-purple plums. At three o’clock are a grouping of half dozen peaches and pears set near two half-filled glasses that suggest wine. The painting technique is bold and uses dry brush strokes. Paint is heavily layered, revealing the colors underneath in areas. The table and fruit are set against a background heavily painting with horizontal strokes in muted greens, terra cotta, whites with deep yellow. Image description 2: An overhead view of a silver, wide lipped pan containing a golden cake brimming with plums.

“For #PDXFoodFriday, here is a painting that celebrates the bounty of a Portland garden. It was made by the great American Impressionist Childe Hassam (1859–1935) during his first visit to our city in 1904. He stayed with his friend Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1852–1944), an author, soldier, attorney, and artist, who was one of the…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Wally Dion

Green Star Quilt, Wally Dion, 75 5/8 x 70, circuit boards, brass wire, copper tube. A large square work composed of circuit boards in various shades of green pieced together like a quilt and connected with brass wire. At center, the circuit boards have been cut into diamond shapes and pieced to form an eight-pointed star. Further diamond shapes surround this star and radiate outward until they create a large star that almost fills the entire work. A thin gold line encompasses the large star forming a square. A border of more circuit boards completes the work. Many shades of green make up the different boards and they are heavily textured with silver and brass colored workings. Small silver balls in rows or patterns dominate the boards along with other metallic geometric shapes. Etched lines in patterns feature in most of the green boards.

“With the vivid, sculptural work, ‘Green Star Quilt,’ artist Wally Dion has cleverly transformed ordinary materials that most people rely upon every day, but do not notice, into a bold work of art. The star pattern is evocative of the quilting tradition practiced among many Native communities in the United States and Canada, but this…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Gordon W. Gilkey

Northern Cascade Mountains, Gordon Gilkey, 22 11/16 in x 19 1/4 inches; sheet: 24 1/4 in x 19 1/4 inches, ink on paper. A vertical rectangular work depicting a mountain range in black ink and gray shading on cream colored paper. At center beginning about a third from the top, the mountain’s ridge runs vertically bisecting the work. At right, three sets of lines slope diagonally away from the ridge with gray shading suggesting smaller crevices on cream. At left of the ridge, the brushstrokes are thicker and are applied in a looping pattern suggesting a textured landscape in shadow. The upper third of the painting shows further rocky, craggy mountains painted with thick, overlapping ink lines and more gray shading. These mountain peaks appear to run horizontally across the top of the work as opposed to the vertical ridge below it. In the lower right corner are the words: “Northern Cascade Mountains, Gordon Gilkey, Febr 1968”, written in script in black ink.

“Raise your hand if you love mountains! During this time of social distancing and sunny weather, Northwesterners are taking to the trails with alacrity. Here in Oregon and Washington, we are blessed with abundant hiking, backpacking, and alpine routes that provide exercise, solace, and stunning views of the vertiginous landscape. The mountains are also a…  Read more

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Daily Art Moment: Marlon Mullen

Untitled, Marlon Mullen, 36 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas. A square painting showing the word “Horizon,” a slightly curved line, and a small crescent shape, all in black on a red background. The background is entirely painted in red with obvious brush work. Paint appears to be applied with short brushstrokes and is thick in some areas. Brushstrokes can be seen especially around the letters in the word “Horizon,” at top left, which is painted in all caps. The letters vary in thickness and are unevenly spaced. About a third from the top of the painting a black horizontal line runs from side to side and curves slightly upward in the middle. At left below the line and about a third from the bottom of the painting is a small black crescent shape. Heavy red brushstrokes surround the shape.

“Marlon Mullen begins his paintings with covers and pages cut from lifestyle magazines and contemporary art periodicals. As he develops a work, he transforms the images into a painted matrix of interlocking colors and forms. This work started with the cover of ‘Horizon,’ an arts-and-culture journal published from 1958 to 1989 and it is more…  Read more