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First Thursday Opening Reception: November 6, 5-8pm

Artist Talks with Stephen Soihl, Justin Auld, Aaron Johanson & Dede Lucia: Saturday November 15th at 2:00 pm.

November 5 - November 29 — MAIN GALLERY

Working Women of Peru 
— 
Priscilla Carassco 
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In March, 1980 Priscilla Carrasco, who had taught herself darkroom photography and had taught photography in the 1970's at the Museum Art School, now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, travelled to Cusco, Peru and then to other villages on down south to Puno, Peru.  Her intention was to record local women going about their daily lives, doing what they needed to do in order to survive.  She was very sympathetic to their plight, talking with them, recording their names, and giving them some money so that they would let themselves be photographed.

 

Priscilla loved the beauty of Black and White Photography.  Composition was very important to her, as was the tonal range in the photograph.  She also had a master's degree in Social Work, which spoke to her concern for the conditions women lived under in Peru and throughout the world.

Priscilla Carrasco, Measuring String

Silver Gelatin Print, Cuzco, Peru 1980

Landscapes and Pendulums -
Then and Now 
— 
 Stephan Soihl 
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Stephan Soihl, Pendulum with hyperbola, Aluminum, brass, plexiglas, motor, 60" x 12" x 8.5", 2025

I have had a long-time interest in Kinetic Art, and have been exploring a variety of ways in which to make sculptures move with the passage of time.  This includes metal elements moving from the action of motors with gears, started by viewers walking past a motion sensor. 

 

Now with these new Pendulums I am fabricating colored plexiglas ellipses, as well as aluminum ellipses and hyperbolas, that move back and forth across each other as a motor is activated.  The motion obeys some of the elementary laws of physics and mathematics. The transparency of the plexiglas ellipses, and the way their colors add as they move in different combinations, is what I really enjoy.

 

I am also exhibiting watercolor landscapes done partially on-site years ago, but which exhibit qualities I really value: an open, delicate, airy composition, where all of the white-of-the-paper is not covered with color.  I believe those qualities exist in my sculptures as well; at least that is my hope.

Quantum Movement
—  Justin Auld   
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Justin AuldQuantum Painting # 90, oil on board, 60" x 30 1/2” (2025)

Fusing old and new work and further exploring new techniques Quantum Movement see Auld continuing his journey into chasing the line of reality.

 

In Quantum Movement Justin Auld continues his exploration of expressing the foundational aspect of quantum physics though the medium of painting. By presenting multiple options for the viewer to land on much like how the unlimited potential of matter “collapses” into reality once observed, the paintings act as a mirror to the creative unconscious.

​

Quantum mechanics describes how a particle has multiple concurrent states of being; these quantum paintings present simultaneous options of an image. They ask you to question your initial perceptions, to see beyond what is first communicated between the eyes and the brain. In this way, these works reflect how each person inhabits their own universe and sees their own reality.

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GALLERY 2

Choreography of the Unexpected 
 —  Aaron Johanson 

What so often goes unseen today is the beauty of the commonplace, the small choreography that unfolds on sidewalks, crosswalks, and at most places where the public intermingles. These quiet visual vignettes reflect the oddity, grace, and shared truth of who we are.

 

Aaron Johanson’s drawings portray a range of pedestrians, some traveling about easily and others struggling in their existence. At first, Aaron was simply intent on depicting aspects of contemporary urban life. But as time progressed so did his realization of the similarity between what he was seeing on the street and in museums and history books. This led him to experiment with juxtaposing contemporary figures within invented seals, imagined Greek vases, and pedestals simply to highlight the universality of the human condition.

 

The arrangement of images in this exhibit shows the progression of Johanson’s thought from direct observations, through surreal depictions to the merging of figures from past and present.

Throughout all of these various depictions runs a common thread in which everyday subjects can also be seen as figures of posterity.​

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Aaron Johanson, Paso Doble, Pencil and Charcoal, 24” x 18”,  2025

About Johanson’s process:
He often use my cellphone to record moments that jump out at him. These visual epiphanies he later scrutinizes in detail through the small screen in his hand. It provides rich inspiration for the figures he draws and imagines enlarged in recreated environments.

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JAMES HIBBARD GALLERY

Playa 
 —  Dede Lucia  
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Dede LuciaWayward, oil on canvas, 36 x 48", $1850, 2025

Dede Lucia expands her oeuvre of Drawing, Collage, Installation and Contemporary Landscape Painting in her new exhibition, Playa.  Inspired by the land and ecology of the PLAYA, and informed by geological data from the area, Dede depicts The Oregon Outback as an engagement of place.  Summer Lake, is a saltwater reserve of an ancient ice-age deposit, its existence is a liminal state upon the land as it approaches and retracts from the shore hourly, creating a unique ecosystem and environment.  

 

In Playa, Dede employs the use of layers to depict this variation and intersectionality of species and ecosystems.   The dialog of scale considers the microcosm of the pond -frenetic, dynamic and short-lived- against the macrocosm of mountains and sky which have formed over the course of millennia.  One may consider this body of work  a nature-culture “call-and-response” to the land as it unites across media to interpret scaled differences of time through patterning, layers, and light.  

 

This exhibition is made possible by the distinguished honor: PLAYA at Summer Lake Awarded Residency located in the Oregon Outback, International Dark Sky Sanctuary, in southeastern Oregon’s Lake County.  This opportunity is also generously supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council Arts 3C Grant received as an individual visual artist from Multnomah County, OR.

What we got goin' on...

See what Blackfish Artists are up to this month...

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Portland Coalition
of Art Collectives
 

BLACKFISH GALLERY

938 NW Everett Street
Portland OR 97209
503.224.2634
director@blackfish.com​

WED - SUN: 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM

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