Disjecta’s Portland Biennial, 2014

Saturday was “Biennial day” and we looked at a lot.  I encourage you to visit the three or 4 venues and see the work.  I’m including here the things that were most interesting to me…so this is not an encyclopedic list.

An early stop was at the Upfor Gallery at NE Flanders and 9th where Ellen Lesperance has a really beautiful installation.  The walls of the entire gallery are hung with silk panels that she “compost dyed” by soaking the silk in soy milk, wrapping bunches of flowers in the fabric and then burying it in the compost pile for a long period of time.  It makes the gallery walls warm and elegant, and provides the perfect background for the tightly controlled framed work.

Lesperance- silk panels

Lesperance whole gallery

the table full of fleeing women

Lesperance- Fleeing Women

Lesperance October 17, 2011

Lesperance Land of Feminye IILesperance 1

the framed pieces are graphite grids with gouache applied in the tiny squares…all on tea-dyed paper.

Lesperance 1 detail

They speak of clothing patterns, needlepoint schematics, layered pattern…beautiful.

At Disjecta (8371 N Interstate)we were delighted to see DE May’s large scale work…

DE May a;; 8

and couldn’t miss the grid and pattern references, (though Dan has been working in this vein for many years, the scale is a pleasant surprise)

DE May detail

DE May 2

at Disjecta I also liked Blair Saxon-Hill’s piece

Blair SaXON HILL

and the Evan La Londe’s delicious Silver gelatin prints…

EVAN LA LONDE

and my final favorite was the video installation by Kelly Rauer on three huge screens with patterns and rhythmic sounds that totally hypnotized me…

video 7video 6video 5

video 4VIDEO 3VIDEO 2

video 9video 8legs

go look, stop for several coffees, tell me what you think.

 

3 Comments

  1. All of this looks delectable. Are grids part of the Zeitgeist right now, I wonder? Wish I were in Portland today, instead of in Sidney, Nebraska, waiting for a blizzard to move east so we can continue west to Wyoming.
    E.

  2. Hi Bonnie, As i will be seeing Dan today, this is perfect timing! He will be delighted to know you posted these. i get out about as much as he does, so again i thank you for keeping the arts alive in my world.

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