highlighter
Group exhibition co-curated with Amy Bernstein
AMY BERNSTEIN
JAMES BOULTON
JOHN BRODIE
TIMOTHY SCOTT DALBOW
MARIE KOETJE
K SCOTT RAWLS
On view January 6 - January 29, 2012
Opening reception First Friday January 6, 6pm - 9pm
In Nationale’s Highlighter, co-curators Amy Bernstein and May Juliette Barruel round up six exhilarating young painters for an intimate, studio-style exhibition. Showing only recent works from the artists, Bernstein and Barruel openly engage with the now in order to emphasize the heuristic energy guiding such innovation in the first place.
Through a shared language of brilliant colors and jostling patterns, inspired in part by the excess of modern culture, the canvases of Bernstein, James Boulton, John Brodie,Timothy Scott Dalbow, Marie Koetje and K Scott Rawls function as a playground for symbolic and formal invention. However, despite such non-representational tendencies, the works ultimately renounce the highbrow tenets of traditional abstraction in favor of more relatable, personal experiences. Like an aesthetic transubstantiation, the act of painting converts momentarily from a studied medium to a mean for catharsis as the artists attempt to decipher society’s fraught existence through each arresting stroke. Whatever the end result, it is always this encounter that matters most for, as Mr. Dalbow avows, “each painting is an excuse to ask the question again.”
Image: California (detail), oil on canvas (in Timothy Scott Dalbow’s studio)
BIOS
Amy Bernstein was born and raised in Atlanta, GA and currently lives and works in Portland, OR. She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. Her work has been shown in Providence, RI; Berlin, Germany; and Portland, Oregon. As an arts writer, she was awarded a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writersgrant in short form writing in 2010. Bernstein writes for PORT.
James Boulton lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA, summa cum laude, from the University of New Mexico in 1999 and his MFA in Painting from Claremont in 2007. His work has appeared in the 2003 Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum,Modern Zoo: NW Abstraction at the Portland Art Center, Core Sample: an Exhibition of Exhibitions and Ulterior Motives: Current NW Abstraction at Marylhurst University. Boulton is represented by Pulliam Gallery in Portland, OR.
John Brodie was born in Portland, OR and has been painting for about 20 years, with explorations in book art, mixed media, and sculpture. Most recently, his work was selected in the biennial exhibition PORTLAND2010. In 2009, Brodie produced Store for a Month, an art exhibit and temporary "store" in Portland (based on Claes Oldenburg's famous Store of 1961) that featured over 70 Northwest artists. With Blair Saxon-Hill, he co-ownsMonograph Bookwerks, a fine art bookstore.
Timothy Scott Dalbow lives and works in Portland, OR, where he received is BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at New American Art Union, Froelick Gallery, PNCA, and Laura Russo Gallery in Portland, OR; Linfield College in McMinnville, OR; and PASCA in Pont-Aven, France.
Marie Koetje lives and works in Portland, OR. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2008 and was the recipient of a fellowship to the Yale-Norfolk Program at Yale University in 2006. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at Guerrero Gallery (San Francisco), The Cheaper Show (Vancouver BC), and LACE (Los Angeles). Koetje has a solo exhibition opening at Vestibuleon January 21, 2012.
K Scott Rawls was born in Nuremberg, Germany and currently lives and works in Portland, OR. He received his BFA from Penn State University. His work has been shown at galleryHOMELAND and Stumptown’s Downtown location in Portland, OR.
PRESS
Review by DK Row, published in The Oregonian’s A&E section, January 13th, 2012.
Essay by co-curator Amy Bernstein.
To request a price list for this exhibition, please email info@nationale.us