Chris Russell
Our latest New Views exhibition features three artists whose work reflects on the world around them, both natural and human influenced, in dynamic and nuanced ways. Amory Abbott, Bethany Hays, and Chris Russell are each meticulous in their attention to detail, using materials ranging from charcoal to watercolor to oil. Whether looking at the density of a forested landscape (Russell), expanses of laundry that can overwhelm and redefine domestic spaces (Hays), or the darks and lights of natural space on the verge of possible destruction, each artist immerses him or herself in meticulous attention to details of shape, color, perspective and other aspects of their craft. Viewers will be enveloped in cascades of color, form, and pattern, which shape the world around us and inform these artists’ work to the smallest detail.
Amory Abbott
Amory Abbott uses charcoal to create large-scale drawings of craggy and forested landscapes that seem to be shifting and falling in space. He notes that this body of work, titled Maps Won’t Work Here, explores “a theme of darkness shared by American Romanticism, Black Metal, epic fantasy, and Dark Ecology.” He seeks to give viewers a sense of how the world might one day change in catastrophic and unfamiliar ways, but in so doing, creates drawings of great beauty and wonder.
Abbott was born in Indiana, received his BFA from the Herron School of Art & Design in Indianapolis, and his MFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. His work has been exhibited Portland, OR and Indianapolis, IN.
Bethany Hays
Bethany Hays’ latest body of work continues an ongoing interest in domestic landscapes. With this show, she explores the visual complexity that can be found in real or imagined piles of laundry. She explains that, “I strive to make work that engages others with life situations like my own and stimulates discussion about the complexities of modern motherhood and cultural ideals of beauty and value.” The piles of laundry that often fill a busy household are recreated in an aesthetic context, where they become more controlled and ordered scenes, or snapshots of “transitory sculptures or mountainous landscapes.” As the work has evolved, it has become less about the laundry and more about the play of watercolor on paper, and the geologic constructions that result, or Erratics, as some of them are titled.
Hays received a BA in studio art from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and her MFA from Portland State University, in Portland, OR. Her work has been exhibited in Portland and Salem, OR, and Olympia and Ellensburg, WA.
Chris Russell
Chris Russell’s paintings explore the tension between observation of the natural world and its recreation on the painted plane. He embraces his Portland home, and its access to nature, but is constantly aware of human-imposed boundaries on the natural world. Similarly, he is engaged by the formal act of painting: mark making, rendering, spatial construction, and how these actions translate the observed experience of nature, especially the dense layers of forest that are ubiquitous in the northwest. Russell states, “I am interested in a painting that becomes an image of the process of its creation.” The painters’ marks are clearly evident, while the lush, entangled landscape imagery constantly vies for our attention.
Born in Colorado, Russell received his BFA from the California College of the Arts. His work has been exhibited in San Francisco, CA and Turin, Italy.