Join Us Every First Thursday in the Gallery

Sine Morse: Immersed in Nature: Journeys in Paper

Artist Reception for Featured Artist, Sine Morse and Guest Artist, Shane Kohler held First Thursday, May 2, 2013

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Featured Artist in our Upstairs Gallery

Sine Morse is a paper artist extraordinaire, and this is her first solo show. She will be featuring her larger pieces, never before displayed or shown. Her work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and throughout Oregon.  She paints thick watercolor paper with acrylics to create vibrant colors, and then cuts each detail of her composition by hand, drawing from her imagination to create paper shadow box scenes. To give dimension and depth, Morse layers vivid colors of paper and rolls paper into cylinders. Her work is enchanting and whimsical, and her brightly colored unique creations depict a natural world that pops with life. See images on Facebook.

Shane Koehler: Abyss

Guest Artist in our Downstairs Gallery

Abyss showcases marine wildlife with emphasis on deep sea creatures and their interactions. Koehler takes a mixed media approach and uses watercolor and acrylic paints. He is an emerging artist whose work has been shown locally only one time before. We are excited to host this exhibit of nature-inspired work.

Exhibits run May 2 – June 4, 2013

Previous Events

Please inquire about art from previous exhibits.  We archive some work by each artist.

VUE MONDIALE: FRAGMENTS AND MEMORIES

An Exhibit of Mixed Media Collage by J. S. Salter
March 7 – April 2, 2013
Facebook Photos

Artist J. S. Salter is an international artist who has shown her work extensively since the early 1990s, having participated in two dozen expositions all over the world, with popularity in Canada. She creates mixed media collage focusing on regional culture. A sampling of her work represents majestic Greek statues and simple found objects. J. S. Salter was born in Nova Scotia and received her artistic education in Boston, and also France, and she graduated from Montreal’s John Abbot College. We are pleased to exhibit this internationally acclaimed artist.

From the artist, J. S. Salter:  I began my first collage about 18 years ago, after a visit to New York City with my college group. However, I only returned to this medium a few years ago, as a change from ‘just painting.’ Drawings are the mainstay of my collage. In the 1980′s before picking up a brush, I drew every day for three years, so am not short of material. Although just as challenging as painting, the search for appropriate and authentic material lends interest to this collage process. I paint from my ‘mind’s eye’; this approach is most difficult but gives me a feeling of accomplishment. About the title piece, Paris and More Paris, I have tried to show a little of this city through the ages. The streets on the map brought to mind the heroes and the not so heroic whose names grace the city.

Pearl District Annual Bunny Hop

March 30, 2013 Noon – 3:00 p.m.

It’s the annual Bunny Hop, a free family event. Everyone is welcome – kids especially!  Hop by Pearl Gallery & Framing for special TREATS, adorn your outfit with a BUNNY MASK or color a BUNNY CARD.

A D R I F T: An Exhibit of Screen Prints

by Travis Taylor
Feb. 7 – March 5, 2013
Facebook Photos

Artist Travis Taylor was born in Santa Barbara, California, in 1980 after which he spent the first ten years of his life moving from place to place and living in remote settings with no electricity or running water. After a turbulent and unproductive 2 ½ years of high school, Taylor dropped out (with a G.E.D.) and began pursuing a B.F.A. degree which was completed at the University of Montana in 2003.

Taylor often shifts between a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, screen printing and music. In his ongoing music project Convenient Noise, he uses synthesizers and samplers to produce strange and barren musical backdrops which are accompanied by live lyrics and spoken word. Taylor looks for inspiration in many places but especially in the grey areas of his own mind. By allowing the subconscious to play a strong role in the process of his art, his work becomes an avenue for expression and exploration.

The surreal subject matter of these small hand pulled silk-screen pieces is an attempt to look beyond the everyday world and give physical presence to subconscious thoughts in hope of re-examining our own inner workings. Taylor feels that visual art can be a gateway to the self and a connection to one another that transcends written words or language. It can change and grow through the power of interpretation long after the work is completed. As an artist, he feels a responsibility to keep searching and exploring regardless of medium.

BLOOM: AN EXHIBITION OF BOTANICAL ETCHINGS

January 2013 Curated Installation

U.S. Bank, NW 23rd & Lovejoy, Portland OR

Artist Statement by Sandra Carlson
Drawing the perfect flower has been a preoccupation of mine ever since I started making art as a child in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.  Shy and introspective, I found a refuge in my obsession with the micro-world of desert plants, reptiles and insects. It is this world of serpents and beastly vegetation that I respond to in my work even now.  Since I have a natural inclination to draw, etching provides an excellent vehicle to explore my personal expression and aesthetic.  My artwork is influenced by illustrations of early botany, memory, imagination and invention. An emphasis is placed on representing these imagined “rarities” of nature as portraits of “hybrids.” I will often compare and contrast the fundamental similarities of structures in human anatomy to organisms in vegetation and in that way, blur the boundaries of organic hierarchy in an attempt to add humor to my imagery in a distinctively personal way.  Line etching allows me to spontaneously create inspired gestures of mark making that resembles the methodical labor-intensive qualities of engraving in a fraction of the time. A variety of grays are achieved with the use of Aquatint.  A second printmaking technique I have explored in this series is Chine-collé. Rice paper is cut into shapes and collaged onto the print, adding texture and color.  Most of my work is printed on Murillo printmaking paper.  It is excellent for picking up the plate tone I want, and imitates the aged look of old botanical illustrations. The largest piece in this show is printed on Arches printmaking paper.  Chine-collé is added for color accents at the root ball and the flower head.  These abstract graphic representations emphasize my view of the fantastic, ethereal, and other worldly qualities that I still find in nature.

Nostalgia: An Art Retrospective

Celebrating the year’s artists!

December 2012 – January 2013

Original Art • Hand Blown Glass Ornaments • Silk Scarves • Ceramics • Jewelry • Soy Candles

PORTLAND

An Exhibit of Paintings and Wire Sculpture

by Zak Gere

Nov.1 - Dec. 4, 2012
(ups

tairs gallery)

PORTLAND, features Zak Gere’s photo-realistic large-scale paintings of our great city.  alongside his amazing wire sculpture.  Native-Portlander and self-taught artist, Gere has been independently showing and selling art since 1999. Gere’s paintings vary greatly in subject and style from photo-realistic portraits to highly stylized figures and landscapes. Zak also produces wire sculpture which he builds from steel into incredibly detailed solid forms.  Interviewed by Urban Art Network, an organization dedicated to creating a thriving arts culture for independent artists, Gere described his artistic journey’s beginning.  He was eight years old, and he perfected the Tippy the turtle drawing, the “famous reptile in cap and turtleneck that graced so many magazine and matchbook ads for art school.”  From his early recognition that he could be an artist, his work shifted from inventing comic book characters, drawing mountains, and depicting women in reading chairs.

Gere had some formal training at Clackamas Community College, where he was first introduced to painting.  It was there that he learned he didn’t need to be schooled in art to pursue his dream, and he is now successful through his sometimes monk-like commitment to his work.  He was inspired to sculpt with wire in his early youth, as a freshman in high school.  He makes animals from wire using basic tools: a hammer, pliers, and his own muscles.

In Our Imagination:

An Exhibit of Acrylic Paintings

by Devin Bernard

Nov. 1 - Dec. 4, 2012
(downstairs gallery)

Sponsored in part by Geezer Gallery, In Our Imagination is a show about ideas and possibilities. It is a collection of images that we would be lucky to see in our dreams. Bernard’s work is mystical, archetypal and dreamlike with its daring depictions of stories unfolding. His work combines portraiture and landscape styles common to Renaissance painting, but also shows influences of the Mogul paintings from India and Latin American painting styles. His work is highly detailed, with striking colors and images that resonate. Bernard’s acrylic paintings are revelatory in the way that they draw us toward an idea, concept or story, and yet leave us with a sense of mystery, full of wonder. Devin Bernard holds a BA in Art Education. His preferred medium is acrylic paint on board or canvas. His work has been shown at several well-known Portland galleries, including the Geezer Gallery.

HABITS AND HUMOR

 An Exhibit of Figurative Sculpture
and Velvet Paintings

by Jennifer Kenworth

Oct. 4 - 30, 2012

Whose work has been featured in HBO’s series, True Blood, is held in the private collection of Danielle Steel and appears on Nike sportswear? None other than Jennifer Kenworth, also known by her pseudonym, Juanita. Kenworth is the famed painter of fuzzy fabric and sculptor of caricatures from six inches to seven feet tall! Pearl Gallery & Framing is excited to host Habits and Humor, a solo exhibit of figurative sculpture and velvet paintings by local artistic celebrity, Jennifer Kenworth.

Kenworth began painting when she was five years old, and was formally educated in ceramic sculpture at California College of the Arts. After showing and selling her ceramic sculptures for many years in the Bay Area and Portland, she discovered velvet painting. She continues creating life-sized figurative sculptures and paints regularly on velvet. Her artwork has been shown all along the west coast including Los Angeles and Seattle.

Kenworth captures the humor of everyday ordinary life in her figurative ceramic sculpture, and represents pop culture in her velvet paintings. Her work has been nationally recognized in well-known venues including the Tonight Show and Oregon Art Beat. You can see her work in the book, Black Velvet Masterpieces: Highlights from the Collection of the Velveteria Museum. She’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and National Geographic Traveler Magazine, and she has served as a visiting artist for Oregon College of Art and Craft and Lewis and Clark College.

In her own words:
The figurative sculptures I create are snapshots of people I see around me in my daily routine. It’s fascinating to me how people present themselves to the worl

d while moving through their daily lives. Someone waiting at a bus stop or in line at a store could inspire me simply by the color of the clothes they are wearing or by the way they are standing. It is these ordinary things in life that catch my eye and inspire me. As Juanita, I capture humor in life through kitsch and icons of American pop culture.

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Pearl Gallery & Framing is proud to exhibit the work of the amazing Shanon Playford. Owing to an interest in art history and contemporary culture, Shanon Playford is something of a painting chameleon. She allows her ideas (or subjects) to dictate the style and approach taken for each new series. Her work demonstrates an unstoppable curiosity for the “what if.” Embracing inconsistency as her signature style, she identifies herself as a project/theme-oriented artist. Shanon Playford works primarily in oil. She infuses her work with a keen knowledge of – and playful irreverence to – traditional skills and techniques.

Having decided she wanted to be an artist in kindergarten, she has been steadily painting & drawing ever since. Shanon Playford graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997 and studied at the School of the Museum Fine Arts in Boston. She lives and paints in her native Portland, Oregon. Her work has been showcased in the United Kingdom and galleries throughout the United States.  Her collectors will be thrilled to see Shanon Playford’s nostalgic paintings on paper, panel and canvas.  This exhibit is not to be missed!

Special thanks to musical group, D.N.A. for providing live sitar sounds at the art opening.

In our downstairs gallery, we are featuring Sheri McGrath, emerging artist from Bandon, Oregon.  Pearl Gallery & Framing is exited to showcase McGrath’s latest mixed media series of work entitled, Swing Me to the Song of Mockery.  Although her current series includes images of mocking birds, each piece includes some other aspect of irony or mockery.  For example, embedded in one of her original collages, you can find a locking box and key designed for special documents, such as a diploma that one might normally see framed to highlight an achievement, but instead it can be safely and secretly stored within the artwork.  Mcgrath is a self taught artist who uses recycled materials to create ironic folk art.  Her work has been exhibited at several Oregon coastal galleries, including Whistling Gallery, SAGE Gallery, Second Street Gallery and Cest Vert, in eastern Oregon at Easy Frame Art Gallery and Sozo, and at The Nickel in Port Orford and Sharkbites in Coos Bay.

A    B R E A T H    O F    I M P R E S S I O N I S M

F E A T U R E D   A R T I S T   J O D I   B U R T O N

guest artist Tina Gleave

August 2 – September 4, 2012

Facebook photos

Pearl Gallery & Framing is pleased to host A Breath of Impressionism, an exhibition of En Plein Air and Still Life Paintings by Jodi Burton, with Silk Wall Hangings and Scarves by guest artist Tina Gleave.

Jodi Burton, in the tradition of the French impressionists, paints “en plein air,” meaning in open air. Artists have long painted outdoors, but this style of painting flourished in the late 1800s when toothpaste-like tubes of paint became available, and French painters like Claude Monet began recording their impressions of the landscapes. In addition to some studio painting of still life, she paints landscapes outdoors in the daylight, rendering breathtaking images filled with the quality of natural light. Although her paintings can be compared to French impressionists, Burton is wary of how style can be limiting, and also of realistic rendering. She doesn’t try to paint photographically. She prefers to push herself in a disciplined way, not just telling the story as she sees it, but including the other or the unknown, discovering and representing something new about each landscape. Jodi Burton is a member of the Portland Plein Air and Studio Painters.

Fun fact: Jodi Burton was commissioned to paint Oregon scenes on the 1921 CW Parker carousel at Jantzen Beach.

Pearl Gallery & Framing is proud to showcase the WEARABLE fine art and wall hangings of California textile artist, Tina Gleave, whose hand painted silk scarves and wall hangings make excellent gifts. Her vivid and vibrant patterns are reminiscent of stained-glass or impressionist paintings. Her style reminds us of the ethereal and dreamy bliss of our natural world, its changing seasons and brilliant gardens. Subjects include irises, sunflowers, orchids, calla lilies, hydrangeas, poppies, Birds of Paradise, dogwoods, aspens, monarch butterflies and more. Gleave is a member of Silk Painters International.

First Thursday, August 2, 2012, we supported the Oregon Women’s Sailing Association’s first annual fundraising event, Sailing through the Pearl, as one of a limited number of galleries that hosted the organization’s Word Puzzle Scavenger Hunt.  Organized in 1994 by the efforts and enthusiasm of local women sailors, the not-for-profit OWSA exists to promote and facilitate the participation of women in sailboat cruising and/or racing events in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

C H R O M A T I C   M I X T U R E S  2

WILLIAM HERNANDEZ
Solo exhibit

July 5 – July 31, 2012

Facebook Photos

Pearl Gallery & Framing is pleased to host CHROMATIC MIXTURES 2, an exhibit of acrylic paintings by Portland-based Peruvian artist, William Hernandez. Here is your chance to meet the artist, William Hernandez, whose artworks are in private collections in Spain, Lima, Germany, Guatemala, Chile and of course, the United States. His style is breathtaking; this is a “must see” show for collectors, especially those who love Peruvian art and culture.

This new series, CHROMATIC MIXTURES 2, focuses on color-rich urban life. Through his use of color, Hernandez alludes to his experiences as a Peruvian artist in Portland, depicting a diverse world of relationships, both imaginary and representational. William Hernandez offers to us in this current series his magical color palette, the hues and tones of real life. Hernandez has the ability to capture dreamlike qualities in his visionary figurative painting. His pieces are sometimes surreal and always playful.

William Hernandez trained at Lima’s Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (1995-2002), and moved to Portland in 2009. He creates both figurative and abstract paintings with his distinct vision, incorporating intense colors, warm figures and humor. In January 2010, Hernandez showed a new body of work consisting of influential figurative paintings entitled “Chromatic Mixtures.” The current exhibit draws on themes from that show, telling stories about and through color.

The work of William Hernandez has been exhibited in galleries and cultural centers from Lima to Portland, including Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, Centro Cultural de Espana, and several venues around Portland. In 2007 and 2008, he participated in the U.S. Embassy’s Noche de Arte: the largest art exhibition in Peru, a show that generates funds for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2011, his work was exhibited throughout La Luna Nueva festival, a Portland event sponsored by PGE Foundation, The Oregonian, and supported in part by a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been covered by numerous publications, including Diario EL Comercio (Peru), and many more journals and blogs.

Aside from painting, Hernandez worked as a graphic designer for both public and international institutions in Lima and worked as an art teacher for El Museo de Arte. Since moving to Portland, Hernandez has shown art at many cafes, stores and galleries throughout Portland. He was one of the organizers for the first Intercambio de Artistas Latinos (Latin American Artists Exchange), which aims to create a network of artists in the Northwest to share ideas, expression and art.

If you can’t make it to the Art Opening, First Thursday, July 5, 2012, be sure to stop by anytime in July to see this exhibit.

GARY HOUSTON SHOWS US THE BLUES:
AN EXHIBIT OF LIMITED EDITION HAND-PULLED PRINTS

Gary Houston is one of the great American poster artists. Under the name Voodoo Catbox, he is best known for making silk-screen posters for music concerts, particularly for local venues like the Edgefield or for touring bands like Willie Nelson, Al Green, Los Lobos and hundreds more. His posters are traditionally made – hand drawn and hand cut or scratchboard originals, and of course, each is hand-pulled.  Each poster commemorates a show, special event or tour.  Each poster is a limited edition, every one numbered and signed by Houston himself.  As each edition is sold out, no more posters of that image are reproduced.

Houston has been doing poster art “for a lifetime.”  He drew since he could hold a crayon.  He attended Wichita State University and Bethany College in Kansas, studying sculpture, art history and drawing.  Houston has graciously donated his time and skills to charitable events and causes, including the Portland International School’s annual auction, and p:ear, an organization whose focus is to build positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth.  His work has been featured in countless venues and covered by notable reviewers, including Oregon Music News and Oregon Art Beat.  We are proud to share his work with you in honor of the great blues artists and the visual artists whose legacies are far too magnanimous for us to comprehend.

Pearl Gallery & Framing offers unframed prints of each poster on display and more work by Gary Houston.

It Aint Nothin’ but the Blues, a powerful PCS production running from May 22 – June 24, 2012,  reveals a world where “its songs soothe the ear, occasionally work mischief on the funny bone and always raise the spirits.”
—The New York Times

 
AN EXHIBIT OF CHALK PASTELS
BY LAURA WALKER SCOTT
AND ORIGINAL ZIMBABWE ART

an installation for:
PORTLAND CENTER STAGE STUDIO LEVEL

April 13 – July 13, 2012

Facebook Photos

In honor of Black Pearl Sings, we are curating an exhibit at the Portland Center Stage Studio Level Gallery, featuring the work of Portland-based artist Laura Walker Scott, whose vibrant chalk pastels light up our hearts and warm our senses.  Walker Scott has developed a unique style that is fresh and surprising.  Her subjects include starry skies, juicy fruit, flowers and oceans she has encountered through her travels as well as more conceptual pieces illustrating topics such as heartbreak and joy.  Her bold style has captured the attention and praise of collectors far and wide.  We have unframed limited edition prints of each Laura Walker Scott piece on display and more work in our Gallery.

An unlikely path led Laura to her current passion. Working as a grocery clerk, she was often recruited to make chalkboard signs. Although she had never drawn before, over time her confidence grew and she added small sketches to the signs. Her skills
improved and creating chalkboard signage became her full-time job. Five years later,
Laura pursued her passion fully and became the chalkboard artist that collectors know and love.

In support of the Zimbabwe Artists Project, we are featuring the work of women artists (and a few men) from rural Weya in Eastern Zimbabwe to help them become more economically self-sufficient.  Women of Weya are subsistence farmers, mothers, and householders as well as artists.  Most women live on their own, providing for families.  Some are widowed; others are single heads of households because throughout Zimbabwe, men leave the rural areas to seek work in cities.  Women’s income from agriculture is unpredictable and limited. Sales of their art helps women afford food, clothing, school fees, medicine, transport, seeds and fertilizer.  Since the market for Weya art in Zimbabwe is extremely limited, sales in the United States are critical.  Zimbabwe Artists Project pays much more than any other buyer, delivering cash at the time of purchase.  Equally important, Zimbabwe Artists Project provides health care to all of the artists, including care to artists who are HIV positive.  All proceeds go directly to the artists.

To learn more, visit http://zimbabweartistsproject.org/

Devon Mitchell’s work reveals the confluence of the industrial and natural worlds.  The juxtaposition of these contrasting realities is at the heart of her amazing compositions.  From her Portland studio, Mitchell paints overlooking Forest Park where it abuts Highway 30.  She captures provocative images at these margins.  Her paintings reflect places where colors and textures meet and converge.

Her process is like a mini-evolution.  She begins with wood panels and rabbit skin gesso, pouring and dripping inks to create an initial layer of texture and color.  With subsequent layers of oil paint and cold wax, Mitchell transforms random texture and color into suggestive forms and landscapes.  Her conceptual exploration ultimately leads her to produce paintings that embody the dynamic tension between abstraction and representation.

Mitchell began painting when she was two years old at the Berkeley Child Art Studio in California.  Over a ten year period, she developed her passion for artistic expression under the guidance of Miriam de Uriarte.  This magical and messy studio, its walls and floors blanketed with drips of paint, inspired Mitchell’s earliest explorations into painting, and continues to serve as a source of inspiration for her work and in her latest endeavor.  She is the founder of Portland Child Art Studio, a new nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon that will recreate for a new generation of children the inspirational studio experience that served as a springboard for Devon Mitchell’s art career.

Mitchell received formal training in Colombia and at Portland State University.  While living in Bogota, she served in a private apprenticeship with Miguel Moyano, who provided her with an intensive educational introduction to formal drawing and painting.  She has since completed a BA in painting from Portland State University.  Her work has been shown in both group and solo exhibitions, and was most recently shown in the 2011 Sitka Art Invitational.

Devon Mitchell’s work is stunning and collectible.

SOLO EXHIBITION:

KELLY WILLIAMS

INTERNAL LANDSCAPES

May 3 – June 5, 2012

Sneak Preview Held at Portland Center Stage
Facebook Photos

Internal Landscapes is an exhibit of encaustic paintings in honor of Oregon-raised Artist, Mark Rothko.  Williams seeks to express the fact that what happens on the outside and what exists on the inside often differ dramatically. These paradoxes are explored through color and texture, physically manifesting the reflection within the artwork. The layering process inherent to encaustic symbolizes the passage of time and the build-up of experiences, one covering another, blending and altering the final visible perception. The use of fire and heat in the creation process reveals deeply buried layers. Layers are also visible through the gouging, scraping, and marking of the wax. The end result is a complicated, intense tactile work. We invite you to gently touch the art, feeling both the subtle smoothness and roughly gouged qualities.

This body of work, very different from Williams’ more representational work, is the artist’s attempt to map her own internal landscape with luminous color and texture, much as Mark Rothko sought to do in his work. Rothko had an invaluable ability to capture raw, emotional experience by using only washes of color, both intense and subdued, along with implied texture within the paint. His work is an exceptional inspiration in Williams’ own quest to symbolize the universal paradoxes of the human condition.

Kelly Williams has shown extensively both locally and nationally. She is a philanthropist, a community-involved artist generously giving her time and skills to serve recovery programs, arts education and collaborative art collectives. Williams developed a Regional Arts and Culture Council-funded project entitled Recovery Panes, working with those affected by addiction. Her work is included in the collections of several local businesses, and has been featured in many local and national publications.

Williams works in the medium of encaustic paint. Encaustic painting is an ancient medium dating back to early Greek and Egyptian art. The paint is made from melted beeswax mixed with pigment and resin. Each layer is fused with a heat implement such as a torch or iron before new layers can be added. Carving tools are used to incise lines and shapes and add sculptural elements, bringing the painted surface beyond its traditional two-dimensions.  Her work is full of life, one-of-a-kind, collectible, and stunning.  See some of the works shown in a sneak preview installation held at PCS Mezzanine.

SOLO EXHIBITION: TEKOAH BUCHANAN

industek visions ?

April 5 – May 1, 2012
(Upstairs Gallery)

The exhibit focuses on industrial areas of Portland from an up close and personal perspective.  Tekoah Buchanan shares images that reveal his lifelong quest to translate our fast-paced industrial world into pictorial works, revealing the beauty of our everyday world in gentles tones of blue, warm hues of gray.  Buchanan’s photographic images have a hand-colored look, and they are printed large-scale by Pearl Printing on fine art canvas and satin cloth.

BRIDGES:
AN EXHIBITION OF THE WORK
OF CHRISTOPHER MOONEY

March 1 -  April 3, 2012

Pearl Gallery & Framing is thrilled to host BRIDGES, an exhibition of the work of Christopher Mooney. A local celebrity in architectural painting, Mooney has made substantial contributions to the visual documentation of urban landmarks in Portland. As a painter of Oregon’s transportation architecture, Mooney reveals Portland as a city of rivers and bridges, showcasing the character, function and form of these icons. He is fascinated by the way in which geometric shapes of steel girders frame the landscape of the city.

People cross bridges every day. See BRIDGES, and with each new crossing, you will celebrate the powerful engineering achievements these feats of architecture represent. The bridges of Portland improve commerce, connect communities, and unite the city. Mooney honors bridges by painting them from unusual points of view, giving them dramatic perspectives, rendering them both realistic and abstract. Light plays an important role in his paintings, illuminating structures, casting shadows, and encouraging viewers to see bridges in new ways, directing our attention to details that we might not otherwise observe.

Mooney has a BFA in Illustration from Parson’s School of Design, New York, New York. His work has been the subject of numerous group and solo exhibitions. He is a member of Portland Open Studios and has won several awards for his painting. His work, cityscape was used as the cover and poster publicizing the book, Rental Sales Gallery, Portland Art Museum, The First 50 Years, in 2009. His work has been featured in Hawthorne Bridge, Celebrating 100 Years in Art and Words, a 2010 calendar supporting the Hawthorne Bridge Centennial Celebration.

We are proud to feature this local artist, his BRIDGES will surely transport you!

INTERNAL LANDSCAPES SNEAK PREVIEW
AN EXHIBITION OF THE WORK OF KELLY WILLIAMS

March 14 – April 6, 2012
Sneak preview of May 2012 Exhibit

PORTLAND CENTER STAGE
MEZZANINE LEVEL
128 Northwest 11th Avenue
Portland, OR 97209

This show, entitled Internal Landscapes, seeks to express the fact that what happens on the outside and what exists on the inside often differ dramatically. These paradoxes are explored through color and texture, physically manifesting the reflection within the artwork. The layering process inherent to encaustic symbolizes the passage of time and the build-up of experiences, one covering another, blending and altering the final visible perception. The use of fire and heat in the creation process reveals deeply buried layers. Layers are also visible through the gouging, scraping, and marking of the wax. The end result is a complicated, intense tactile work.  We invite you to gently touch the art, feeling both the subtle smoothness and roughly gouged qualities.

This body of work, very different from her more representational work, is Williams’ attempt to map her own internal landscape with luminous color and texture, much as Mark Rothko sought to do in his work. Rothko had an invaluable ability to capture raw, emotional experience by using only washes of colour, both intense and subdued, along with implied texture within the paint.  His work is an exceptional inspiration in Williams’ own quest to symbolize the universal paradoxes of the human condition.

Kelly Williams has shown extensively both locally and nationally.  She is a philanthropist, a community-involved artist generously giving her time and skills to serve recovery programs, arts education and collaborative art collectives.  Williams developed a Regional Arts and Culture Council-funded project entitled Recovery Panes, working with those affected by addiction. Her work is included in the collections of several local businesses, and has been featured in many local and national publications.

Williams works in the medium of encaustic paint.  Encaustic painting is an ancient medium dating back to early Greek and Egyptian art.  The paint is made from melted beeswax mixed with pigment and resin.  Each layer is  fused with a heat implement such as a torch or iron before new layers can be added.  Carving tools are used to incise lines and shapes and add sculptural elements, bringing the painted surface beyond its traditional two-dimensions. Her work is full of life, one-of-a-kind, collectible, and stunning.  In May 2012, Pearl Gallery & Framing will feature Kelly Williams in our Gallery.

ANNUAL BUNNY HOP

Saturday, March 31st – 11am to 2pm

It’s the annual Bunny Hop, a free family event.  Everyone is welcome – kids especially!  Hop by Pearl Gallery & Framing for special TREATS, adorn your outfit with BUNNY EARS or make a stand-up BUNNY CARD.  We’re excited to participate once again in this growing Pearl District event!

COLLABORATIONS: NATHAN PETZ AND EMILY KAY

Want to take home a piece of Portland?

Looking for gifts?

Pearl Gallery & Framing features local artists, emerging and established. Media include original oil paintings, encaustic, limited edition prints, pencil/chalk drawings, one-of-a-kind jewelry, ceramic and metal sculptures – something for everyone, including limited edition rock posters, botanical etchings, colorful pastels and images of Bridgetown spanning 100 years. We also sell antique prints (botanical images, birds, bridges, circus scenes and more), offer canvas stretching and more.
Please inquire.

Visit family-owned Pearl Gallery & Framing:

9 am to 5 pm Weekdays
11 am to 5 pm Saturdays
and every First Thursday until 9 pm

Feel free to contact us with any questions.

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