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| Jewish Gala Raises Money For Cultural Center - KTVA Posted: 14 Nov 2010 07:48 PM PST | | THINGS TO DO Select a tab above to search in that category Calendar  | | Most Recent Comments
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| Surpassing cultural context: Shihoko Fukumoto and Devon Oder - Oregonian Posted: 12 Nov 2010 05:10 AM PST Published: Friday, November 12, 2010, 5:10 AMThe images conjured by combining the word "tradition" with the word "art" are none too pretty: nesting Russian dolls, woven amulets, folk art extraordinaire. Most art shrivels under the weight of "tradition," which turns even the most exacting practice into a touristy circus show.It is a tribute to the inherent strength of artist Shihoko Fukumoto's work, then, that the pieces on display in the Japanese Garden's Pavilion manage to both reference their cultural context and surpass it. Fukumoto's work uses traditional Japanese dying techniques in new ways, producing pieces that are both bold and delicately beautiful, both abstract and representational, both modern and traditional. Consider, for instance, the 12-piece installation "Time Space," a series of nearly 7-foot square cloth panes suspended one in front of the other across the gallery hall. The panes repeat the same colors and the same design -- a light blue and white circle inside a darker blue square. While the layout and design could easily bore the eye, the nuances of "Time Space" delight. The colors of the central circle shift and change, while the rich, deep blue of the outer square stays stable, suggesting both the natural time of the moon, months, seasons and tides, and the eternal time of the universe itself. This is earnest, heartfelt stuff and is purposefully beautiful in a way that much serious contemporary art is not. Fukumoto's blue is real indigo, the kind that is distilled from plant leaves and processed by hand, not the synthetic stuff we've come to equate with blue. Her techniques rise from an ancient hand-dipping practice similar to tie-dying, but she also brushes and processes her panels in ways her ancestors did not. She is internationally known as an "indigo artist," a craftsperson who has limited herself to one medium and who has gained mastery of that medium. An artist who is able to accomplish through subtlety what others accomplish through pyrotechnics, Fukumoto has taken the tradition of her culture and made it her own. "Indigo Is the Color of My Dreams," by Shihoko Fukumoto; Portland Japanese Garden, 611 S.W. Kingston Ave.; hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Mondays; closes Nov. 28; garden admission: $9.50 general, $7.75 seniors and students; $6.75 ages 6-17; japanesegarden.com "Ashen Glow" Two years ago, eastside gallery Fourteen30 marked its opening with a show of manipulated Polaroids by California artist Devon Oder. Seventeen shows later, Fourteen30 has brought Oder back with a new crop of images -- half of them black-and-white naturescapes, the other half white-on-blue cyanotype contact prints. The two parts of the show work together to create a nice pause and repeat rhythm, while the individual images offer complicated textures and interesting abstractions. Oder works in photography, but in a photography that pushes against its tradition. Oder is at her best when she allows her images to become weird without forcing weirdness upon them. Take, for instance, the messy textures of "Tree Cave (Crawler)," a black-and-white jumble of vines and branches made from multiply exposing detail-rich medium-format film. Up close, the image shows a world that is recognizable, though ominous and odd. Viewed from a distance, the piece's surface reveals shapes, patterns and lines that don't correlate to anything in nature. Pieces like this manage to be both playful and deadly serious -- a view to a world both known and unknown, a whisper of the intimate that houses secrets. Other images try a little too hard -- like "Totem," a shot of a brick chimney surrounded by flower fields and forest. At the center of the image is a familiar prism of light, a trick of the lens reflecting the sun. We all recognize just that prism from scrapbook images, which raises the question: Is Oder aiming for nostalgia, or is she making fun? The artist statement and the title point toward a post-apocalyptic world, but the image doesn't bring that idea forward. Instead, the piece seems like a nice picture of a pretty scene, without the bite of the weird that empowers the rest of the show. Two years ago, Oder showed us Polaroids that presented one vision of the world. Now, she shows us something new. Watching an artist change and mature through successive shows at the same gallery is one of the joys of our local art scene. Congrats to Fourteen30's first two years, and best wishes for two more to come. Fourteen30 Contemporary, 1430 S.E. Third Ave., No. 100; noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays and by appointment; closes Nov. 21; free; fourteen30.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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