925 NW Flanders Street
Portland,
OR 97209United States
Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6
First Thursday Receptions:
First Thursday 6:00–8:00 pm
Jane Beebe opened PDX in 1996. For nine years she worked with much admired Jamison/Thomas Gallery until it closed in 1995 when William Jamison passed away. The first PDX location was on NW 12th Avenue in Portland's Pearl district. Designed by Allied Works Architecture, it was small and beautiful. In the fall of 2005, PDX relocated within The Pearl to a 1910 building. Although it is much larger, the design of the gallery, again by Allied Works, retains much of the intimate character for which PDX Contemporary Art has been known. It is warm, filled with natural light and reflects a philosophy of recognizing history, living in the present and looking to the future. PDX exhibits work by artists for whom in most cases, we are the primary representative. The gallery's high standards have won praise from critics, viewers and artists alike. The gallery participates in art fairs and advertises in national publications.
Ellen George
Ellen George will exhibit new work in nose touches twig (title source The Thought Fox, a poem by Ted Hughes). George’s new works are evocative of undersea life, water, clouds, and geological formations. The low-relief sculptures are achieved by layering and shaping clay and the repeated gesture of removal. In several works, the recurrent gestures of rolling and pinching clay result in accumulation. George states, “With repetition we notice even small variations in sameness – a feeling of both continuity and of outward growth. There is constant and subtle novelty”.
George has exhibited large-scale works made of hundreds of components at the Tacoma Art Museum, Interstate Fire House, and the Archer Gallery. Her most recent project, Bloom, a nine-foot by fifteen-foot kiln formed glasswork can be viewed at the Nines Luxury Hotel in Portland. The extraordinary work can be viewed from both the hotel atrium and the hotel reception. George’s work has been exhibited in Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Florida, and Texas, as well as the Pacific Northwest. Her work is in the Collections of The Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of East Texas, and King County Public Collection.
Songs from the Treetops
A group show curated by Harrell Fletcher
Participating artists:
Carson Ellis, Chris Johanson/Jo Jackson, James Miles, Kenneth Mroczek, Eduardo Navarro, Santiago de Paoli, Wendy Red Star
In these times of economic desperation, (or even just during the desperation of everyday life in general) it is understandable that people would find escape routes into alternate realities. For some people that is as easy to do as turning on the TV or slipping into a haze of web sites. The stereotype of an artist is a person who disappears into their own studio and self on a regular basis to appear later with the resulting art pieces for the general public to appreciate and possibly acquire. In my own work I've largely eschewed that approach in favor of direct interactions with everyday reality that often times doesn't result in the production of an object at all. But my past artistic interests come from more traditional cloistered retreats into personal moments of representing imagined worlds. I have a love for that kind of work, and though my appreciation for art in general has diminished over the years there are still examples that stand out to me as remarkable. In these cases I am glad that the artists didn't make the work solely for themselves and instead in one way or another have shared their unique views with the public including myself. In the work presented here at PDX, I have selected artists who specifically address the idea of constructed landscapes in various forms. I feel like I have been enriched by these artist's endeavors and in turn, want to share that experience with you. –Harrell Fletcher
Tina Beebe
Tina Beebe will exhibit new paintings in Afield. Beebe’s new body of work is about space and time. Using the Poppy flower as subject, Beebe captures the essence of a fleeting, fragile, yet intense existence. Her use of color is vibrant and energetic while the spare compositions are informed by the space of each petal that changes throughout the day. Beebe states, “Yet an existence so gracefully expressed in color and light is very brief, only a few days, becomes a reflection of our own brief lives. In this, the paintings reference the Buddhist principal of being fully here and now and living with a light touch on our fragile earth”.
Beebe studied color theory at Yale under Josef Albers. After graduation she worked internationally as a graphic designer specializing in color on architectural projects. Beebe also worked professionally as a landscape designer. She was born and raised in Portland.
Representing the following Artists:
Patrick Abbey, Brad Adkins, Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen, Tina Beebe, Nick Blosser, Bean Finneran, Jacques Flechemuller, Ellen George, Victoria Haven, Mary Henry, Ryan Jeffery, Arnold J. Kemp, Elizabeth Knight, Cynthia Lahti, James Lavadour, Lisa Lockhart, Nancy Lorenz, Joe Macca, D.E. May, Kristen Miller, Wes Mills, Megan Murphy, Vanessa Renwick, Tad Savinar, Adam Sorensen, Barbara Stafford, Storm Tharp, Terry Toedtemeier, Molly Vidor, Nell Warren, Marie Watt, Masao Yamamoto
