Nicola Lopez
Urban Transformation #1
etching, lithography, and woodcut
30" x 30"
edition of 12
2009
Nicola Lopez
Small Transformations
September 2 - October 2, 2010

First Thursday Reception: September 2, 6 - 9 pm

Working in several media, including printmaking, drawing, and installation, Nicola López describes and reconfigures our contemporary—primarily urban—landscape. Through the visual language of cartography she layers references to architecture, history, technology, and topography in order to explore the tension between order and disorder. With her Urban Transformations series López physically represents a common contemporary sensation: That this artificial world of concrete and technology we have constructed around ourselves might begin flying apart at any moment.

Nicola López was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She attended the Skowhegan School in 2002, and in 2004 received her MFA from Columbia University. López has had solo exhibitions at Caren Golden Fine Art and Pace Prints in New York, NY, and her work has been included in group exhibitions at PS1 (Queens, NY), LACMA, (Los Angeles, CA), and MoMA (New York, NY). Small Transformations is López's first solo exhibition at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. There will be an artist’s reception for López Saturday, September 18, from 5 – 6 pm.


Justine Kurland
Heroic Cave Portrait, Santa Cruz
c-print
18.75" x 24.25"
edition of 6
2008
Justine Kurland
This Train is Bound for Glory
September 2 - October 2, 2010

First Thursday Reception: September 2, 6 - 9 pm

For two years Justine Kurland and her young son traveled throughout the American West, exploring what remains of our commercial rail system. Kurland photographed not only these trains in the landscape, but also the train hoppers and hobos who clandestinely ride the rails, as well as her own little family and its experience of the journey. The resulting photographs consider the romanticism and utopian fantasies inherent in the American experience, also presenting an extremely rare (in this day and age), extraordinarily personal relationship to the physical reality of our country and its industrial and social fringes.

Born in Warsaw, NY in 1969, Justine Kurland received her MFA in 1998 from Yale University. Since then, her work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), and many galleries and museums throughout the world. Her photographs are a part of the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY) and the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY), among several others. She is represented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash (New York, NY).


Stephen Hayes
Wild Beauty - Revisted #1893
monotype on paper
9" x 12"
2010
Stephen Hayes
Wild Beauty - Revisited
September 2 - October 2, 2010

First Thursday Reception September 2, 6–9 pm

Stephen Hayes, primarily known for his landscape paintings, here presents Wild Beauty – Revisited, a new group of monotypes that takes Terry Toedtemeier’s 2008 exhibition and book project Wild Beauty as its jumping off point. While both Hayes and Toedtemeier are examining the Columbia River Gorge, Hayes takes a much more abstract approach. Employing a technique he has frequently applied to many different types of landscape, Hayes meditates on the rhythms and repetitions found in the Gorge, ultimately presenting a nearly abstract version of this icon of the Northwest. Toedtemeier passed away in 2008, and this exhibition is dedicated to his memory.

Born in Washington D.C. in 1955, Hayes received his BS in 1977 and his MFA in 1980, both from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has had several solo exhibitions at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, as well as at Papajon’s Gallery in Kyoto, Japan, The Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), Portland State University (Portland, OR), and The University of Maine (Orono, ME). His work has been included in group exhibitions at PNCA, PICA, the Portland Art Museum and four Oregon Biennials (all Portland, OR). In 2004 he received an Oregon Arts Commission Award. Hayes has been represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery for over 20 years.