Recent Paintings

Seattle artist, Anne Siems paints ethereal figures in celestial places with careful detail and refinement. Her dream-like depictions allude to childhood memories, wonderment, and 19th century ideas in scientific study, psychoanalysis and photographic portraiture. Elements, as if from a cabinet of curiosity, surround the figure: birds in cages, flowers, trees, trinkets, and lace. This exhibition entitled, Creatures, continues her development of an allusive narrative, placing poised figures in personal and secluded tableaus. The figures evoke lost memories with an old world aesthetic. They are delicately rendered and composed, caught in that photographic moment of motionlessness. Harmonious in color, her works enchant us in their dreamy and poetic reverie.

Painter Jack Portland combines elements of surrealism and expressionism with a patterned and abstract vocabulary. He incorporates images ranging from landscape to still life to a synopsis of personal forms. Since 1993, he has divided his time between Portland and Italy, which has dramatically influenced his work. In the past, his imagery primarily featured abstract forms, some architectural, some organic, that used repetition and pattern to create a dream-like, fantasy world. Here his color palette and imagery softens, the compositions are looser, and elements and line overlap. Landscape vignettes enigmatically merge with abstract shapes and patterns. His paintings allude to place while capturing the sensuous nature and imaginative beauty of the world around him.