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About Willamette week. (Portland, Or.) 1974-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 2015)
visual arts feb. 25–march 3 = WW Pick. Highly recommended. By Richard Speer. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show informa- tion—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rspeer@wweek.com. opening up to reveal crystals and geodes inside. Finally, Susan Harlan’s kiln-formed glass panels are diminutive masterpieces of exquisitely nuanced textures and wave forms in blue, beige, black and orange. Dark Ecologies is a strong, haunting show. Through March 28. Bullseye Projects, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222. Dianne Kornberg: Madonna Comix Project Free Fall by Friderike Heuer, part of stories Constructs Constructs is curator Rachel Adams’ inspired solution to the quandary of how to fill Disjecta’s massive exhibition space. This clean, elegant show is a kind of “etude on the wall,” a series of strategies for filling the space without actually plopping anything down in the middle of it. Three artists pull the trick off with élan. Nathan Green’s earth-toned mural recalls the abstract patterns of the late minimalist Sol LeWitt, and Pablo Rasgado’s strips of vertical wall coverings are excavated from buildings he’s seen around the world. Most impressively of all, Laura Vandenburg’s cut-paper sculptures have obsessive detail that complement their gigantic scale. The show’s coup de grâce is Adams’ ballsy decision to leave a large section of the north wall 36 empty. The negative space lends an off-kilter dynamism that perfectly sets off the three artists’ works. Through March 1. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449. Dark Ecologies The first thing you see when you walk into Bullseye’s three-artist show, Dark Ecologies, is Carolyn Hopkins’ beauti- ful and disturbing sculpture, Cascade. It depicts a strung-up dog with styl- ized entrails spilling out of its belly and looping over a tree limb. Glass beads link the dog to an eviscerated bird underneath it, which appears to leak blood into a red pool on the floor. This violent, virtuosic piece is left wide open to each viewer’s interpretation. Emily Nachison’s Diver is equally allu- sive, with its succession of oysters Willamette Week FEBRUARY 25, 2015 wweek.com A decade or so back, in a city other than Portland, Dianne Kornberg’s racy Madonna Comix Project would prob- ably have had right-wingers lined up to protest. These photo-based prints, based on poems by Celia Bland, dis- pense gritty commentary on woman- hood and motherhood. In Education of the Virgin 4, a nude torso and preg- nant belly (presumably the Virgin Mary’s) are encircled in a nimbus. Below, a caption ironically offers: “Anybody can have a baby.” Education of the Virgin 6 shows the lower half of a nude woman, squatting above a caption that begins, “Virgin Mary is not hairy down there,” and continues with equal irreverence: “It’s God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in there— swallowed, perhaps, and passed with a kiss through nether lips.” In these and other pieces, Kornberg winningly marries feminism with blasphemy. Through Feb. 28. Augen Gallery DeSoto, 716 NW Davis St., 546-5056. It’s Raining Cats and Dogs Animal-themed art shows should be granted a special rung in hell. In 2008, Froelick devoted a show to horses and so did Butters. Yes, that was seven years ago, but the statute of limita- tions is far from up on cutesy show- cases of our fun ’n’ furry friends. Now comes Charles Hartman’s paean: as the show’s subtitle puts it, A Group Exhibition of the Canine and Feline. There are important historical artists represented here—André Kertész (1894-1985) and Arnold Newman (1918-2006), for example—but really? Do those of us who love pets really need to keep vintage photographs of pets around the house to remind us how much we love pets? Maybe so. Through March 15. Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, 134 NW 8th Ave., 287-3886. Jo Hamilton: Whom After a thoughtful and poignant show last year at Q Center, Jo Hamilton unveils a new body of work at Laura Russo Gallery. This artist works in crochet, yet her work transcends ghettoization into the subgenre of “fabric art.” Working in portraiture, she achieves uncanny realism, which she simultaneously undermines and heightens by letting the fabric hang down from the subjects’ faces, bodies and clothes. This stalactite-like effect suggests the decay we all succumb to over time. It’s a sumptuous, sobering show. Through Feb. 28. Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754. Joe Rudko: Picturesque It’s heartening when an estab- lished blue-chip gallery such as PDX Contemporary takes on an artist for his first-ever gallery show. That’s happening this month when Joe Rudko, a recent graduate of Western Washington University, makes his debut with the exhibition Picturesque. Spartan and elegant, Rudko’s works on paper exude minimalist savoir-faire. He creates them by ripping, cutting, folding and reconfiguring photographs and other images into new composi- tions, challenging the viewer to recon- sider the dynamic between component parts and overall gestalt. Through Feb. 28. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063. Kevin Kadar and Takahiko Hayashi Froelick offers a strong pairing of shows for February. A standout in Kevin Kadar’s show, Portals and Puzzles, is the acrylic painting Firewall. With its flame- licked, scorched-earth landscape, it looks like the unholy love child of James Lavadour, Alex Lilly and Hieronymus Bosch. Another standout is Paint Portal, Paint Puzzle, in which two nude women stand beside an upside-down nude man, whose penis and scrotum dangle comi- cally. In the back galleries hang Takahiko Hayashi’s impossibly intricate etchings and drawings on paper. The astonishing series of 12 pen drawings, collectively entitled In a Swirl of Many, Many Small Circles, shows a geometric cyclone of circles floating like snowflakes or fairy- dust. Some of the pieces are scored with tiny pinpricks inside the circles’ centers, emphasizing the fastidious- ness of these miniature masterpieces. Through March 14. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 222-1142. Stories Three artists unite for Stories, a myth- themed exhibition that is Blackfish’s most satisfying and sophisticated show in at least five years. Steve Tilden and Jen Fuller’s metal-and- glass collaborations make a stunning visual impact, especially in the instal- lation entitled Their Strong, Thick Wings, which hugs its way along three walls. It’s a myriad of metal tri- angles that seem to float, morphing into abstracted wings, then into real- istic wings, complete with glass feath- ers. The components cast a web of shadows, arguably as beautiful as the shapes that create them. Friderike Heuer provides a brilliant foil to the metal and glass sculptures with her haunting digital photomontages. In her Free Fall series, she takes on a near-mythic event in recent history: the devastation of Lower Manhattan during the 9/11 attacks. Amid her tab- leaux of wreckage are images of birds, suggesting an uplift of the spirit even in the face of tragedy, and engaging in a kind of visual call-and-response with Tilden and Fuller’s bird-wing installation. Through Feb. 28. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. For more Visual Arts listings, visit