Ellen Lesperance

My comfort zone generally runs toward representational and narrative art but I try to keep my mind as open as my eyes. Down at Upfor gallery here in Portland there's a display of work by local artist Ellen Lesperance that is worth your time if you happen to be in town. Her process is highly conceptual. Working from sweaters worn by feminist activists as well as the designs worn by Amazons on classical Greek pottery (!) she develops her own abstract pieces on hand drawn grids. Now concepts can be interesting or not, without having much impact on the visual end product. When the end product is as eloquent and captivating as these, it tends to deepen the interest, adding a layer of satisfying back story and possibly piquing the viewer's interest in those of the artist. In this case, that's the role of feminist activists who often sacrificed many other aspects of their lives to bring about necessary and still nascent changes in society. But process and intent should never be what draws you to a work of art in the first place, and they can be safely set aside until you have first taken in the finished product. Aesthetics is still the unavoidable root challenge of all visual art, despite numerous attempts to set it aside during the 20th century. These pieces meet that challenge with a startling synthesis of painstaking meticulous detail and elegant informality. The hand drawn uneven grid gives the structural aspect of the work room to breathe. The individual paintings are hung upon a background of hand-printed silks, and on a small table near the center of the room, small  statuettes of activists and Amazons cavort together across the millennia in common cause. It's as much installation as it is painting and sculpture, and it's a quietly powerful room to spend a little time in if you get the chance.
The show will up through March 30 at Upfor Gallery
You can see more of Ellen Lesperance's work at her website:
www.ellenlesperance.com

Beth Cavener Stichter

"Tangled Up in You" with Allasandro Gallo

"Tangled Up in You"

"Tangled Up in You" detail

"The Adoration (from Van Eyck)"  Stoneware based mixed media sculpture
168 x 36 x 16 inches

"The Adoration (from Van Eyck)"  detail

"The White Hind (The Bride)"  Stoneware based mixed media sculpture
68 x 50 x 18 inches

"The White Hind (The Bride)"  detail

"The White Hind (The Bride)"  detail

"L'Amante"  Stoneware with Ceramic Glaze
45 x 60 x 44 inches

I've included a lot more images in this post than usual because the detail shots really matter. Everything about Beth Cavener Stichter's work is exquisite, from the concepts to the energetic grace of her compositions. The deft gestural surfaces of her work demonstrate the fluid grace of her hands at work and echo the fluid grace of her animals. But of course there is a tension in that grace as well. It requires the muscular tension of a dancer in peak physical condition to make dramatic motion look effortless. But it's not just physical tension that I'm talking about here. There is a psychological tension. Because her animals are not just animals. They are us. They remind us that we are animals and that more than 90% of what we do and how we act, our obsessions, our fears, desires and weaknesses, are not controlled by conscious thought, but are governed by millions of years of evolution. We are at the mercy of the animal within and no matter how much we may try to dress it up in the veneers of civilization we betray our origins every moment of every day with a tilt of the head, a gesture of the hand or a subtle shift of the eyes. And yet we seem to live in denial of all of this. Perhaps we must deny it. Perhaps the animal within requires us to constrain it with our rational cages (though it can and does escape whenever it really wants). The tension between out instinctive selves and our self-conscious selves and how it plays out in complex human behavior is the subject of her work. Though it can sometimes be grotesque or sorrowful, lonesome or bitter, it always moving, and it is always beautiful, because it is life.

You can see more of her work at her website: www.followtheblackrabbit.com
Or at Claire Oliver in New York City

"Tangled Up in You" was done in collaboration with Allasandro Gallo and was featured recently in High Fructose where you can see more detailed images of it including the process of its creation.

John Grade

La Chasse

Capacitor

Seeps of Winter

Host

Elephant Bed - fabrica

Starting with the suggestion of organic forms, then blowing them up to enormous scales, often inserting them in architectural settings, John Grade creates juxtapositions that catch you off guard, stop you in rapt wonder. And that seems to me to be one of the important tasks of art, to catch you unawares so that you are, for a moment at least, transported outside yourself lost in thoughtless wonder. But ideas matter too or the art is not worth returning to even when it manages to catch you in this fashion. His work is about more than the snapshots you see here. Much of the work has a lifespan. They aren't often meant to last and so often the nature of their destruction or decay also becomes part of the process of the art. In addition to pictures there are short videos on his various installations. They don't always stay in one place either and the simple act of transporting the creations from one environment to another has a way of changing your perception of it. Which is all just to say that this is really fun, really cool stuff, and what more could you want from art anyway?
Go check it all out on his website: www.johngrade.com

And thanks to folks at www.booooooom.com for posting it before me

Dan Tague

"Reality Sucks"

"Hope in the Whitehouse"

"Resistance is Futile"

"The Almighty Dollar"

"American Muscle" 1969 Firebird Hood

Well to day is Black Friday - that commercial flip-side to Thanksgiving. For those outside the US, I'll just say... it's a long story. But it's a perfect day to post these. Actually, there's a lot more to Dan Tague's work than cleverly folded US currency. There's all kinds of conceptual work, installations, graphics, and so on. But the folded money is what first caught my attention and it neatly captures the overall tone of his work. Which is to say, both highly cynical and slyly humorous at the same time. The money pieces are presented asquite large glossy prints, simply matted and framed and make an arresting presence in person. The bills are generally photographed on a black background, the one exception I found being "Hope in the Whitehouse" photographed on white,  presumably because it was the only one expressing anything optimistic. In general his work reflects a highly skeptical view of American politics and history, and this themes overlap his personal experience as a resident of the famously flooded ninth ward in New Orleans. Much of the work since then has dealt directly and indirectly with the government's response to the disaster. To look through all of this for yourself just go to his website: dantaguestudio.com
or his gallery's website: Civilian Art Projects.

Myeongbeom Kim

Untitled  Deer taxidermy, branches, leaves

"Edison"  15" x 15" x 30"  Branch, goldfish, glass, steel

"Leave"  installation

"Chair"

Untitled  balloons, oak tree

Most of my posts fall in the category of representational painting. That's what I know. It's what I do and feel best qualified to comment on. But it's not the only thing I'm interested in looking at, and it's good to mix things up now and then. Myeongbeom Kim is a sculptor, installation and performance artist whose work is quite varied, and reflects an ongoing obsession with trees, balloons and goldfish bowls. There's a lot of clever juxtapositions going on and some interesting commentary on both the fragility and tenacity of nature. But mostly he displays the wit and ingenuity that all art requires to take the viewer by surprise and force us to look at the familiar as if it were new and strange. There's a lot of work to look through on the website so take your time.

www.myeongbeomkim.com

I saw this work first on www.artistaday.com

Patrick Dougherty

My focus has always been primarily on painting, because that's what I do, and I understand it. But it's nice to mix it up once and a while.

I was really pleased to come across Patrick Dougherty's website recently (www.stickwork.net). One reason is that there is a permanent installation of his work at the headquarters of Wieden+Kennedy here in Portland, Oregon (see here and here for pics). Only I did not know until now who the artist was. And now I'm glad I do. I only wish it were possible to teleport around the planet and see more of his creations. He began by with an interest in primitive building techniques and started experimenting with saplings as construction material. He has to date, constructed over 200 of these large scale works. Nature is clearly the primary influence here and one is immediately reminded of the nests of weaver birds and the dams and lodges of beavers among others, but his work also incorporates architectural elements signifying it's innately human origins. His art creates a marvelous psychological bridge between the human and natural environments.















"The Summer Palace" 2009
Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Photographer: Rob Cardillo.















"Around The Corner" summer 2003
University of Southern Indiana, New Harmony Gallery, New Harmony, IN
Photographer: Doyle Dean.















"Around The Corner" winter






















"Spinoffs" 1990
Decordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusettes
Photographer: George Vasquez.






















"Crossing Over" 1996
American Craft Museum, New York, NY
Photographer: Dennis Cowley.















"Childhood Dreams" 2007
Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, Arizona
Photographer: Adam Rodriguez.