Jack Portland



Jack Portland
Lilies, Landscape 2008
oil on wood panel
16.5" x 11.75"

Painter Jack Portland combines elements of surrealism and expressionism with a patterned and abstract vocabulary.  He incorporates images ranging from landscape to still life to a synopsis of personal forms.  Since 1993, he has divided his time between Portland and Italy, which has dramatically influenced his work.  In the past, his imagery primarily featured abstract forms, some architectural, some organic, that used repetition and pattern to create a dream-like, fantasy world.  Here his color palette and imagery softens, the compositions are looser, and elements and line overlap.  Landscape vignettes enigmatically merge with abstract shapes and patterns.  His paintings allude to place while capturing the sensuous nature and imaginative beauty of the world around him.

Born in California, Jack Portland came to Oregon in the 1960s.  He graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 1971 and established himself here as an artist and teacher.  His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous private and public collections including the Portland Art Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Honolulu, HI; the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA; the Brooklyn Museum, NY; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.  Among his public commissions are the Portland International Airport, Western Oregon University, and the Portland Police Southeast Precinct.  His latest commission is a fresco for the Belluschi-designed St. Philip Neri Parish in Portland, a project documented by Oregon Artbeat, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Emmy-award winning program.

More examples by Jack Portland

Wang Gongyi


Wang Gongyi
Possible - 2005.10.06 2005
ink on xuan paper
55" x 28"

Originally from China, Wang Gongyi studied woodcuts in Hangzhou in the 1970s.  She was invited to Paris by both the French Culture and Education Ministries in the 1980s and early 1990s to pursue art.  Ironically, this European exchange strengthened her Chinese identity.  Through foreign exposure to traditional forms of Chinese art, she discovered her own heritage and a Zen-like routine of artistic practice.  Here she was drawn to repetitive patterning, creating a daily diary of images that led to a keener understanding of process.  By approaching similar yet varying elements over and over she became empowered by the immediacy of experience and physical perceptions.  She pushed through a strenuous pursuit of etching and lithography, the rigor of experimentation blossomed into self-discovery.  By 2000, Wang moved to the United States, and having to make her own way, increased her self-awareness through Buddhist scriptures by keeping an open heart and a focused sensibility about her work.

Wang Gongyi graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1980 with a MA in printmaking and then taught there.  She has exhibited her prints and works on paper since 1980 including one-person exhibits in France, China, Canada and the United States.  Group shows include the 4^th International Ink Painting Biennial of Shenzhen, China; Jose Martinez Gallery, Lyon, France; Art Basel, Switzerland; the Exhibition of 15 Famous Chinese Artists, Munich, Germany; and the International Print Exhibition, Portland Art Museum, Oregon.

More examples by Wang Gongyi

Upcoming 2008-09 Exhibitions:

March 5 – 28
Mel Katz – Recent Sculpture
Roll Hardy – New Paintings

April 2 – May 2
Jay Backstrand – New Paintings
Erik Stotik - Paintings