The second exhibit is with Gallery 114 in the Pearl District (just across the street from Blick Art Materials on NW Glisan) where my dear friend Myra Clark is a member. Myra recently mounted a solo exhibit there which featured abstract paintings charting her path to recovery following a head trauma-- and among these works was a small selection of exceedingly minimal paintings, predominantly in white, that contain elements reminiscent of Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross series from the late 1950's.
When Gallery 114 asked each member artist to invite another artist to participate in an exhibit about collaboration Myra kindly asked me to be her counterpart. The exhibit, titled +1, asks members to exhibit their work "side by side with mentors, muses, collaborators, comrades, and friends." In planning out our part, Myra and I sought to identify harmonies that existed in line, color, and composition between her minimal white works and my photo based transfer works while simultaneously acknowledging (and celebrating) the great differences in representation evident. The resulting grouping is not, strictly speaking, a "side by side" display, but rather an activated grouping of works that creates its own unique symmetries and tensions. The process of devising it allowed me to see familiar work in a very new light, and brought an appreciation for elements within each piece that heretofore I'd perhaps glossed over when pairing them with my own works in past exhibits. The opening reception for +1 runs from 6pm-9pm on Thursday, June 6th at 1100 NW Glisan-- I do hope to see you there!