Karen Florek Archives - Portland Art

Twombly House: Ephemeral Museum

The Twombly House: 4449 SW Twombly, Portland, Oregon
Open Reception: Friday, October 15, 2010 / 4 – 9 p.m.
Open for viewing: October 16 – 28, 2010 — Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 4 – 8 p.m., Closed Monday
for more info please visit: aliciabluegallery.com and nwmodernshow.org

Twombly House: Ephemeral Museum

Alicia Blue Gallery and Designform Studio, in collaboration with Living Room Realtors, is pleased to announce a special exhibition of modern art and design. The exhibition presents a mid-century ranch house which has been appropriately renovated into a contemporary dwelling; this project demonstrates the idea that art and design can be accessible and coexist in a living situation.

For two weeks this conducive space will be transformed into an ephemeral museum. The curating of this home will be well executed, down to the finest detail. The exhibit entails a complete spectrum of the finest collections – fine art, product design, and home décor. Design curators Giovanni Castillo (Designform Studio) and Trisha Guido (Relish Design) along with fine arts curator Alicia Johnson (Alicia Blue Gallery) will join forces to orchestrate this uncommon exhibition.

Artists:
Angela Baker / Caryn Baumgartner / David Boekelheide / Ryan Bubnis / Kevork Cholakian
Meredith Dittmar / Carlos DonJuan / Katherine Dube / Colleen Flaherty / Karen Florek
Lisa Gronseth / Renee Hartig / Junko Iijima / Timothy Karpinski / Lisa Kowalski
Jennifer Lee / Christine Nguyen / Saule Piktys / Heidi Schwegler / Micki Skudlarsky
Curtis Speer / David Stein / Kevin Taylor / Lien Troung / Samantha Wall / Bryan Wolf / Wes Younie

Designers: ALTURA FURNITURE, AMANDA WALL-GRAF, BRIGHT DESIGNLAB AND HAMMER & HAND, CALLUM CLARK, CRAFTED SYSTEMS, ESQUE STUDIOS, GRAIN, JASON ANDREW DESIGNS, JEFFMADE, JEREMY ALDEN, THE JOINERY, JONATHAN LANGSTON, LAND • LINE DESIGN, LEAH NOBILETTE, LORI MASON, Made, MAGMAX DESIGN, MARK DIAMOND, MERKLED STUDIO, MOLLY PURNELL, MOUFELT, NAMUH, NICHOLAS MICHEELS, PABLO PARDO, SCOTT SCHROEDER, SPACE DESIGN, TERRY BOSTWICK, TLAGG, TUFENKIAN ARTISAN RUGS, WILL ULLMAN

Host: Jenelle Isaacson, Living Room Realtors — jenelle@livingroomrealtors.com
Living Room Realtors have the master copy when it comes to knowing Portland’s inner urban neighborhoods. Their superb eye for living quarters spans from vintage, historic, mid-century modern architecture to green building. Living Room Realtors are being branded the purveyors of modern art-space homes.

Design Curator: Giovanni Castillo, Designform Studio — giovanni@designformstudio.com Designform Studio is a design studio specializing in commercial and residential interior renovation and design, with modern design and methodology at the core of their design practice. Designform’s collaborative approach ensures that imagination, expertise, and reality come together to produce exceptional projects.

Design Curator: Trisha Guido, Relish Design — trisha@relishstyle.com
Relish is a lifestyle, a mentality, a philosophy. It is the idea that everyday objects should be beautiful, functional and affordable. It is the zone between individuality and mass production. A carefully curated collection of emerging designers from around the globe inspires, elevates and touches our senses.

Fine Arts Curator: Alicia Johnson, Alicia Blue Gallery — info@aliciabluegallery.com
Alicia Blue Gallery is an online contemporary art gallery. We represent a balanced integration of emerging and mid-career level artists offering them favorable circumstances for promotional and creative maturity. Our vocation is to bring into being the imagination and technicality of passion, educate the eager and celebrate the arts.

I Dream Animal — July 29 – August 21, 2010

Opening Reception: Saturday July 31st 5 – 8PM
Extended hours for last Thursday July 29th 4 – 9PM

Alicia Blue Gallery
1468 NE Alberta St. | Portland, OR 97211

Alicia Blue Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, “I Dream Animal”, featuring Los Angeles artists: Christine Nguyen, Karen Florek and Caryn Baumgartner. These three artists’ works represent a deep reflection into the world of imagination and dream. Their work shares a common sensibility that feels akin to a floating dream state- familiar, as much as fleeting.

Caryn Baumgartner’s oil on canvases are richly painted with colors that, if imagined, were mined from terrestrial mineral and oxide veins- powdered and instinctively processed. Crowning the surface with heavy distress, these paintings become gentle phantoms. Her expertise as a painter is seen in her large works, where her simple approach to her canvas keeps an unspoiled feeling. In both “Stag” and “Fawn”, she abstracts the figure and leaves just an outline of the animal surrounded in rich color, a ghostly reminder of the perfection of nature.

Christine Nguyen’s experimental use of photography comes alive in her large-scale installations. One feels like they have passed into another world- deep in the nadir of ocean, discovering schools of undersea neons with a mineral-like frequency. Alternately traveling to outer space with crystalline frost growing outside your view and minimally scattered fragile hexagon colonies. The black backgrounds with nearly celestial light leaks are highlighted with brightly colored creatures and constellations stemming from her imagination. Her imagery draws on elegant science and imagination-provoking wonder.

Karen Florek’s series of lith prints are explorations of the internal world of the body. Her hand altered images made in the darkroom are mysterious. X-ray photon blacks and whites with glass like elements add to the scientific beauty of an almost unclassifiable, yet organic skeletal subject. The process of creating a lith print involves time and dedication; there is nothing instant about it. The visual outcome is unique with a grainy surface retaining dark shadows and soft delicate highlights. Different colors and hues can be achieved by chemical reaction as the developer begins to oxidize and age, which adds to the unpredictable effect.