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Nine Gallery - inside Blue Sky Gallery, 122 N.W. Eighth Ave. through August 2,2009
( photo: Calvin Ross Carl)

Nude Reclining

PORTLAND
Mary Henry: “Paintings And Drawings”
at PDX Contemporary Art
Nationally lauded although most consistently exhibited on the West
Coast, veteran painter Mary Henry enjoyed a long and fruitful
career. Her death on May 20—during the course of this show’s run—
at the age of 96, lent an unanticipated poignance to this chronolog-
ically expansive, formally cohesive exhibition. Born in Sonoma,
California, Henry earned her undergraduate degree at CCAC in the
1930s and her MFA in the 1940s at the Chicago Institute of Design.
There she studied under László Moholy-Nagy, gleaning from the
preeminent constructivist a predilection for the hard edge. In the
1960s and ’70s she combined Pop’s unabashed colors with
Minimalism’s austere forms.
There are other influences and integrations from the arc of 20th-
century abstraction. In the bright, blocky Metaphor(1995) and more
subdued Sarabande(1997) we see a reshuffling of De Stijl. A cheeky,
Stella-esque concentricity enlivens the bold bullseyes of On/Off 8A
On/Off 8B (1967), and Lichtenstein hovers around the cartoonish
lines and outlines of It Even Rains in California (1971). But the artist
shows her own sui generis hand in paintings that evoke her native
Northern California. Nowhere is this achieved more poetically than
in Full Moon Over the Mendocino Headlands(1971). A melding of
elegantly cinematic proportion (48” x 72”), finely honed gradations
of color, and archetypal imagery, it posits horizon line, silvery orb,
and cool, flat black stretching out implacably, evoking the chill of
windswept cliffside, the white noise of surf pounding rock. This is
the kind of painting you can feel on your face like droplets of salt
water on a midnight hike. Mystical in atmospherics, muscular in its
graphic punch, it balances Zen quietude and Western ambitious-
ness, intoning its own soundtrack in the mind’s ear: part bamboo
flute, part fugue, an Alan Hovhaness tone poem in acrylic paint.
Other geometric motifs include the mirror imagery of Memory Field
(1991) and Vermillion(1975) and the witty semantic juxtaposition of
Language Barrier with Orange(2005). A selection of works on paper
includes Social Realism-flavored landscapes from 1941 and a suite
of eight watercolors and ink drawings from 1964, showing the
artist’s movement from organic curves to rectilinearity. With its 64-
year span—from the 1941 drawings to a 2005 painting of
undiminished freshness—the show opened with the feeling of a
retrospective and ended on the heels of Henry’s death, providing a
fitting valediction.
—RICHARD SPEER

“Black Page,” D. E. May’s fifth solo exhibition at this gallery, furthers the artist’s hermetic examination of the material ephemera and vernacular traces of the Pacific Northwest. His new drawings and assemblages consist of serial works on paper housed in reflective transparent document holders installed throughout the gallery in a variety of grid forms. With nearly forty drawings in the exhibition, the room is electric with the raw and refined energy of May’s passionate exploration of spatial forms, language, and storied materials such as weathered cardboard, old notebook paper, and other unidentifiable objects flattened and compressed by life on the streets.

May collects and reuses materials that he affixes to intricate drawings of grids and architectural forms, or uses them as the surfaces for other similar drawings. In Untitled (459), 2009, for instance, a rectangle of sagging, stained-brown “skin” is positioned in the center of a square, vertical grid. It is impossible to discern the precise nature of the material or whether May had a hand in its transformation. This ambiguity, which runs throughout all the work, habitually refocuses the viewer’s attention on the organization and observation of experience. The exhibition might read like an archive, but the system at work is cryptic, private, and self-sustaining.

Most of the works in “Black Page” are either mounted on or incorporate thick black paper. One group, bearing the title of the exhibition, consists of plans, schematics, and notations for the construction of various improbable objects. These pieces are drawn in fat white marker on the black paper and are the humorously erratic unconscious of the exhibition, containing instructions such as ARTIST’S STATEMENT BASED ON THE FILM THE SWIMMER W/ BURT LANCASTER IN WHICH THE ARCHITECTURE ALONG THE HILLSIDE OF SWIMMING POOLS BECOME THE SUBPLOT INSTEAD OF THE BORED HOUSEWIVES. One can imagine each drawing in this extraordinary body of work as a frame from a long-lost documentary or cartoon.
-Stephanie Snyder

Storm Tharp takes a photo of Vanessa Renwick and Cynthia Lahti by the camp fire. Wild strawberry being offered.

We thank Dan Katvika who photographed, at his suggestion and as a gift, Cynthia Lahti's exhibition. We thank William Bragg for the insightful photos of D.E.May's studio. Francis Lombardi for the photographs of D.E.May's work which we used for the postcard image. Finally Lydia Beebe for gamely photographing, at a moments notice, Rod Pulliam and me (Jane Beebe) for the PDX Across The Hall and Pulliam Gallery July postcard.

Adam Sorensen exhibits new paintings at James Harris Gallery in Seattle.

"I am excited about the idea of making a monumental legal and safe bike lock sculpture which carries the beauty of the Pyle, which as a cultural form relates to the hill that is descended, as well as screams community. The Zoobombers to me represent free in the truest sense, the freeness of the bikes, the freeness of the idea, and the freeness of the feeling experienced while bombing down the hill. This is something that is Portland, and I don’t want to see the spirit of the Pyle vanished in the new form taken. Zoobomb Pyle is rad! Beautiful! But we can enhance it...make it better."

Off the Map: The Western Oregon University Experimental Film Festival

Portland’s film scene is internationally known for its commitment to independent, alternative, and experimental media. Please join us for three fantastic events featuring work by filmmakers based in Portland, OR.

Portland Filmmaker Andy Blubaugh
In person - Weds. May 20, 5pm, Hammersly Library, Room 107

Portland Filmmaker Vanessa Renwick
In person - Weds. May 27, 5pm, Hammersly Library, Room 107

Program of Short Films & Videos - Thurs. May 28, 8pm, ITC 211
Curated by students in the Art Department, this program includes short films and videos by Andy Blubaugh, Rose Bond, Carl Diehl, Gretchen Hogue, Ryan Jeffery, Marc Moscato, and Steven Slappe. Several filmmakers will be in attendance.

All events are free and open to the public.

Ellen George "nose touches twig" reviewed on PORT

http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2009/05/ellen_georges_n.html