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TONIGHT: Portland premiere of Vanessa Renwick's new video "Mighty Tacoma" at the Hollywood Theatre

12 May, 2011

Thursday May 12th, 7pm, Hollywood Theatre: Premiere of Vanessa Renwick's new film "Mighty Tacoma" as a part of Sound & Vision festival.

Award winning filmmaker, Matt McCormick (“Some Days are Better than Others”, “The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal”) will curate the evening. Matt is also known in music circles for his work directing videos for The Shins, Sleater- Kinney, and YACHT . Matt will provide visuals for a live performance by Eluvium, and screen short films by Vanessa Renwick, Karl Lind, Melody Owen, and Kurtis Hough. Good Night Billygoat will close.

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TIX AVAILABLE NOW: http://tinyurl.com/3quog43



Johannes Girardoni: Review by Eva Lake in Visual Art Source

7 May, 2011

A reductive enquiry into the merger of architecture and light via painting, photography and sculpture are the hallmarks of Johannes Girardoni’s work. Titled “Light Matters,” the exhibition occupies two separate rooms in what could be two separate shows. But the longer we look, the more the lines of distinction between the various approaches are blurred and therefore united.  
 
The main gallery houses sculptures which contrast found wood with a tactile paint composed of beeswax and pigments. Some are spilt in diptych fashion; the raw states of wood are paired with thick, cakelike painted sections. The result is a satisfying hyper-state of nature, as geometrical shapes rise from the patina with a dripping, oozing effect. Many of the pieces are voids and enclosures - empty and fully present, sexy and spare, hollow yet full. 
 
While monochrome surfaces and content are implied, even when processed as such, the experience of any one color is multidimensional. Light intervenes. His odd mustard in “Diptych – Yellow Green” reminds us how curious and transient color from the natural world is, inviting but also strangely plastic and saturated. The rough found wood is celebrated as such, looking like it just left the farm. The placement of the pieces utilizes just about every surface in the space – on the walls, lying flat on the floor and somewhere in between. They are individuals in conversation with each other, and remind us that the artist is known internationally for his installations. Indeed, the artists will present an interactive light and sound installation at the 54th Venice Biennale later this year. 
 
Digital photographs of billboards in both urban and rural settings are the springboard for Girardoni’s “Exposed Icons” series, housed in the second gallery. These pieces are montaged and layered, filtered with digital color and then painted with house paint. Creating a complicated maze and history of experience, Girardoni explores with ease the seams between digital and analogue realms. These icons are a compressed sculpture, once again presenting and repeating the light and the void. Every applied digital or painted color field takes its cues from the natural colors already captured in “reality,” engineering shifts in our perception of space. 
 
The layers can be subtle with hidden histories of process, but in pieces like “Exposed Icon 5’” the paint is more the point. It is far from solid, leaving marks and traces of the artist’s activity, aiding the consolidation of many mediums into one. Perhaps the most convincing exploration of a readymade void is “Exposed Icon 21,” in which the billboard is a perfect white. It is then reflected back onto the Mojave Desert in the same blue as the sky above, thus producing a delicious double-monochrome.


Marie Watt: Featured Artist of PCC's Art Beat Festival

9 May, 2011

Marie Watt is this year's featured artist at Portland Community College's Art Beat Festival. She will present on her featured work and her style as an artist on Monday, May 9th from 1 to 2 pm (at Little Theatre, PCC Sylvania Campus) and on Tuesday, May 10th from 9 to 10 am (at Room 217, Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building, PCC Cascade Campus).

Click on link for more information: http://www.pcc.edu/about/events/artbeat/2011/



Vanessa Renwick: Two-night NYC Retrospective (April 10 - 11)

5 April, 2011

Program 1: "The Oregon Department of Kickass" at UnionDocs
Sunday, April 10 at 7:30pm $9 suggested donation.
http://www.uniondocs.org/vanessa-renwick-the-oregon-department-of-kick-…

Program 2: "Mix Me A Walk" at Anthology Film Archives (a Flaherty NYC event)
Monday April 11th at 7:30 PM Tickets $9 / $6 for Anthology members.
http://www.flahertyseminar.org/?sb=3&mb=1

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE INFORMATION



PDX is pleased to be a participant in Photolucida

26 March, 2011

Portland, Ore.—Running April 13 – 17, Photolucida will hold its eighth Photography Festival, a five-day celebration of photography bringing together an international set of photographers and reviewers for portfolio reviews, lectures, and a portfolio walk for the public. Photolucida is collaborating with the Portland Art Dealer’s Association (http://padaoregon.org/events) in presenting month-long exhibits of photography in Portland’s major galleries.