February 4-27, 2010

THE LAURA RUSSO GALLERY IS PLEASED TO PRESENT:


Margot Voorhies Thompson: Abstract City - Recent Work

Betty Merken: Hard Pressed - New Monotypes

OPENING RECEPTION:
First Thursday February 4, 2010
First Thursday Hours, 5-8pm

Please join us for artist talks with Margot Voorhies Thompson and Betty Merken, Saturday, February 13, at 11 a.m.


Margot Voorhies Thompson



Margot Voorhies Thompson
Abstract City: Bridge 2009
mixed media on linen
42" x 56"

This exhibition of work by Margot Voorhies Thompson, entitled Abstract City reflects on the transformation of place and its similarity to the shifts language can make through time. Similar to natural and urban landscapes, language has the ability to reinvent itself and adapt over time, or run to extinction. Witnessing the dramatic transformation of Portland over the past few decades, Thompson has found compelling parallels between the evolving qualities of language and the changing structure and appearance of the city's urban and cultural landscape. Her newest paintings and collages utilize her longstanding formal and abstract visual language of calligraphed shapes and intersecting forms to map and suggest the evolution of the urban world around us.

A Portland native, Margot Voorhies Thompson studied at Lewis and Clark College, Reed College, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and at the Hocheschule Fur Kunsterlische in Linz, Austria. Her work is in collections including the Portland Art Museum, the Stanford University Hospital, and the Printmaking Workshop in New York. Margot Thompson has completed several collaborative book commissions with Kim Stafford, Pattian Rogers, and Wendell Berry for the University of Oregon’s Knight Library Press. Other commissions include pieces for Oregon University of Health and Sciences, Portland; Portland State University; Kaiser Permanente, Tualatin, OR; the Woodstock Branch Multnomah County Library; and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, both in Portland. Most recently she has begun a commission for the Oregon State Hospital.

More examples by Margot Voorhies Thompson

Betty Merken


Betty Merken
Hues with White Form 09-09-12 2009
monoytpe
34" x 26"

Seattle artist Betty Merken’s latest series of monotypes continue to explore the way color and form interact to create image. They are exuberant and widely ranging, both in her use of shape and color. The direction for this body of work evolved from experimentation with cut paper shapes in her studio. She explains, "in this new body of work I’m examining how a geometric form takes on a totally different life, when just a corner, or a section for instance, of the rectangle is curved. This simple shift can create a new, equivocal shape which now hovers between recognition and abstraction." Combining newly emerging shapes with colors ranging from primary red, blue, and yellow, to hot pink, and turquoise, the energy of these prints invigorate the eye and the mind.