Nancy Lorenz: Willamette Week review

I love gold. It’s part vanity, because I’m blond and it suits my complexion, but it's also deeply aesthetic: a result of having spent so much time with gilded medieval altarpieces, manuscripts illuminated with gold leaf, and all the rest of the long history of Christian art. I was always bound to love Polished Ground, and in person I couldn't resist the swirling, shimmering golds, silvers and platinum. The soft metallic pigments accentuate the coarse burlap canvases, and vice versa. Some even include mirrors, like a vanitas painting, as if to scold the viewer for reveling in the artist's vision. But beauty can't be punished. The only telling off you’ll get from me is if you don’t make time for this show.