Gary Wiseman

Throughout the month of January, Action Archive (Gary Wiseman in collaboration with Merideth Andrews) will present Where Am i, a performance and installation investigating the process of documentation of contemporary art practices.

This interactive project utilizes participation to activate and coordinate Wiseman's historiographical process regarding his body of work. The month long exhibition/performance will be open with the artist in attendance every Friday and Saturday from noon till 6pm, for the month of January.

EVERYDAY MAGIC

Everyday Magic is an events series that will activate Igloo gallery throughout December and January. Based on the concept of the Everyday, events will include presentations, demonstrations including how to brew beer at home, skill sharing, project sharing, dance parties, experimental meditation, film screenings, music, and potluck food-making and eating.

Please click on the Calendar below.

EVERYDAY MAGIC: Calendar

YEAH! CANNIBALISM

Photographs and installation work by Paige Saez, Jason Spieth, and Rebecca Steele

Artist's Reception: THURSDAY, DEC.4, 6-10pm

The work in this show investigates a theory of cannibalism as a process of consumption and reintegration. A form of cannibalism is the ritualistic eating of human flesh by other humans. The person being consumed had power, strength, and skills that are ingested by the cannibal. The individual acquires (or appropriates) the power or symbolic necessity of the other through the process of consumption.

This process is similar to how we look at art and digest meaning. It provides a framework or mechanics for understanding a synthesis of appropriative strategies.Cannibalistic art represents the dissolution of categories, it is instead an index of the un-categorical. This process-driven work seeks to critically engage how appropriation and collection function through building on strategies of gleaning, co-optation, and collaboration. For this exhibit we are presenting work that uses cannibalism as a methodological process. The images are cannibalized from multiple sources, from video games, Youtube videos, and the recreation of existing projects of mimicry and play. The attempt is to combine multiple elements in to one body, in essence to merge.

The ingestion and regurgitation of culture is a fundamental homogenizing process of creative production and provides the conceptual framework for this show.

JESSICA McCAMBLY

As a continuation of investigations of place and sentimentality via an abstract and minimal vocabulary, Leave a Tender Moment Alone is a collection of works on paper and an installation based on observations of the ephemeral, rhythmic instances of waves crashing on the beach. The undulating lines are abstractions of the clustered shapes a wave takes after it crashes. The compositions suggest, on an altered scale, the frothy sensuality of the moment.

McCambly continues her subtle and expansive exploration of works on paper at IGLOO this month. McCambly has shown her large-scale drawings and paintings and sculptures utilizing intricately cut and suspended paper in numerous national venues including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Dallas Contemporary, The Garage Gallery in San Diego, CA and was included in the London Biennale in the U.K.

McCambly earned a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the University of North Texas, College of Visual Arts and Design.

Candy Circus Opening

John Oliver Lewis let us peek into his large body of work, showcasing numerous scultpures that play well together. Check out his website to browse his body of work more in depth, and see how he applies his concepts in other mediums.

CANDY CIRCUS

This month at IGLOO we have John Oliver Lewis from San Diego. He will be showing ceramic works that lie in between sculpture, painting, and the soft quality of Play-Doh. These objects of imagination are supported by the inspection of architecture, natural land formations and vehicles of travel, informed by cartoons, caricature, knick-knacks, and candy. The resulting individuals are often arranged into groupings and "gangs" based on observed formal and narrative relationships.

CRYSTAL SCHENK

Crystal Schenk will exhibit an interactive sculptural installation in IGLOO during September. The work will transform the gallery walls into a large canvas consisting of magnetized walls which will attract and hold an organic formation of steel pellets hand-placed by viewer participants. Over the course of a month, the installation will undergo continuous transformation as visitors add the steel pellets to the magnetic wall and begin to reshape the growing mass.

Schenk’s work has been exhibited at galleries in Switzerland, New York, Chicago, Portland, and throughout the Midwest. She is an adjunct professor at PNCA, The Art Institute of Portland, and Portland Community College.

Opening Reception: Thursday, Sept. 4, 6-10pm

August "Play" Show

A tremendous group show and one year anniversary at IGLOO on the 7th of August. The mix of work developed on the loose theme of "Play" was as varied as the artists. Sculpture, footwear, audio recordings, Mad Libs, and painting/wood carving. It all came together.

PLAY group show Opens August 7

This month Bryon and I asked some artists around Portland to create a work based on the idea of PLAY. We wanted people to try a new approach, method, or concept that allowed them to experiment with their practice. As can be expected, a wide variety of interpretations came about with unexpected results.

Artists: Melissa Gallagher, Matthew Greene, Larry Mills, Christopher Ross, Paige Saez, Joe Shea, Cyrus Smith

Reception: Thursday, August 7, 6-10pm

Art Auction Party on Thursday July 31

GIMME BABY ROBOTS, a large artist cooperative from Madison, WI, is hosting a one-night event featuring a silent auction of small works by tons of artists nationwide, at IGLOO. One stop of many including Memphis, Chicago, LA, SF, and now Portland.
Works start at prices as low as one dollar. A great opportunity to purchase original artwork from good artists for a low price. Not to mention it is a great place to have fun, drink beer on the cheap, and meet awesome people.

Where: Portland, OR at IGLOO on Thursday, July 31st.

Bidding starts @ 8:00 pm and concludes @ 11:00pm.

We Are All Wrong and It's Alright

Gordon Barnes and Mandee Schroer share Igloo this month, two artists united by approach and sensibility but divided by materials. Both Barnes and Schroer enjoy taking the floating scraps of ideas and materials around them and playing matchmaker with them, sometimes with harmonious intent and others with sadistic curiosity. However, Schroer's material interests tend to center around more tactile and physical qualities whereas Barnes prioritizes materials primarily in terms of conceptual potency or perceived symbolism. In terms of tone, Schroer's work often evokes both a quietly playful sense of wonder at finding oneself in open spaces and an unnerving sense of loneliness bordering on ominous. Barnes' work feels more like a dusty old library with the TV and stereo blasting in the midst of a party that only he is at.

Christopher Ross

Christopher's paintings are amazing, and it seems everyone thinks so. Lucky for painting that Chris is around. Looking forward to seeing his work get recognized in Portland on a larger scale.

Fair and Balanced

June's first Thursday welcomes all new work from local artist Christopher Ross (B.F.A. Kansas City Art Institute). His abstract paintings are energetic, complex and beautiful. You will spend a lot of time looking at them. Opening reception at the Everett St. lofts, Thursday June 5th from 6pm until 10pm. 325 NW 6th #102, Portland, OR 97209.

Ryan Burghard's works

Ryan's work is highly skilled in craftmanship, and easy on the eyes. Looking past the immediate imagery, the viewer can see Burghard's concerns with male identity referencing pop culture, mythological history, and spiritualism. The sculptures at both ends of the gallery created a powerful connection of relationships between works. This was a deceptively conceptual show with well made choices and intention by the artist.

SUPERNATURAL-AID opening May 1st

Ryan Burghard is a multidisciplinary artist recently relocated to Portland from Madison, WI. Burghard will be exhibiting large photographs and sculptures of various dimensions. Burghard appropriates the cultural symbolism from his youth to re-evaluate the construction of the American male identity. Combining references from comic book heroes, 80's cartoons, sacred geometry, feminist theory, and contemporary male studies, Burghard delivers a portrait of duality that creates an ironic rewriting of the cultural rites of passage the American man must navigate in order to become a socially conscious individual.

Ryan Burghard received his BFA from Bowling Green State in 2003, and his MA and MFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2005-6. Burghard has showed extensively in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Canada, Australia, and recently Portland. IGLOO will host Burghard's first solo show in Portland.

1:1

Hello. A great crowd showed their faces at the April first Thursday opening. Thanks to Jenevive and Posie, the artists, and all the peeps that showed up. I thought this was among the best work we have seen at the gallery. Original and inspiring. Look to the future for more great up and coming artists.

1:1

April at IGLOO

This month IGLOO features the works of Posie Currin and Jenevive Tatiana. Both will be creating installation based works, along with video, painting, and works on paper. The artists work within the realm of the enigmatic, balancing between the familiar and unfamiliar. The works comment on the interstitial, transitional, and cyclical nature of experience and apprehension. "1:1" suggests works existing within a continuum, defined only by the indeterminacy of their current manifestion.

Animal Magnetism

This month we have a group show of artists from Oregon, Washington, Brooklyn, and Baltimore working in video, sculpture, and works on paper. The artists in Animal Magnetism play with ideas that lure the viewer either into a heightened state of interest, or in contrast a refusal of engagement. The works stimulate questions about what qualities in a work of art create an experience that mesmerizes, or polarizes, the viewer. What does it take to capture a viewers attention and keep it, or push them away? This visual tension resides in each individual work, creating a dialogue between works in the gallery activating the space as a dynamic field of push and pull.

Modou Dieng

Snaps from the Modou Dieng show at IGLOO.

!HEY LOVER

Modou Dieng is a multidisciplinary artist working in mixed-media, painting, photography and installation. Dieng's work conceptualizes views of contemporary life constituted by a mix of humanity, topography, and pastiche of forms. Dieng evokes the city's continuously changing façade, as well as the hybrid character and eclectic combination. The works comment on urban history, race, social status, gender, cosmopolitanism, and belonging.

He is Founder and Curator of Worksound Gallery (Portland) and received his BA from Ecole Nationale Des Beaux Arts (Senegal), and his MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. Dieng has exhibited with numerous galleries and museums including Steve Turner Gallery (Los Angeles), Pascal Polar Gallery (Brussels), Dakar Biennial, Carousel Du Louvre (Paris), Sarah Lawrence College (NY),Umass Boston, Museum of Contemporary African and Diaspora Art (NY), Casa Encendida (Madrid),JoBurg Art Fair (S-Africa). Dieng has done workshops and conferences in several institutions including – Brown University, University of West Florida, Universite Catholique DE Louvain
(Brussels), The Fire Station (Dublin), Denison University, and Ohio University.

Last Show of 2007.

"Nice Trim" was a great show to end the year on. We look forward to more great art in 2008 and we hope to see you then. Our next first Thursday show will be in February.