Ellen George: With Jerry Mayer in the Willamette Week
Long Tone
Visual Arts
RICHARD SPEER
Friday January 16
Nine Gallery
122 NW 8th Ave.
Frequent collaborators Ellen George and Jerry Mayer have done it again. These two can be counted on to take the simplest of materials and transubstantiate them into gorgeous sculptural installations. In their latest, room-filling exhibition, Long Tone, tall planks of wood stretch, gently bent, from floor to ceiling, bracketing one another like parentheses. Five sets of these brackets define the space, with varying numbers of planks on either side of a central opening, creating differing visual rhythms. The shapes and the apertures in their middle are allusive; to walk through them is like emerging from a stylized birth canal. Unlike in previous collaborations, Mayer and George didn’t include dramatic lighting or a sound element this time. It’s just about the wood, which kicks the minimalist impact of the piece into an even more austere plane. Through Feb. 1.
Where: Nine Gallery
Phone: 227-7114
Address: 122 NW 8th Ave.