Print maven, Seattle-based Brian Lane, has organised a portfolio for the Southern Graphics Conference in my favourite city, Portland, Oregon, that runs from 30th March to 2 April 2016.
Entitled Dreamscapes: The Ebb and Flow of Time and Possibility, this portfolio asked artists to address their subconscious, where past and future collide.
My dreamscape print is a linocut which I made last year, showing a woman’s face partly hidden and transformed by the petals of a white chrysanthemum. The chrysanthemum flower is from Asia, and white ones signify grief and bereavement, traditionally placed on graves.
Lined up, the women and the chrysanthemums appear like masked warriors, eyes shut contemplating the past and protected against the future.
Dreamscapes Portfolio statement reads
‘Our subconscious provides unfiltered access to the storage vault of memories, observations, feelings, and the day to day minutiae that we absorb without knowing. This storage is virtually unlimited, yet in the waking state we have trouble accessing this surplus of info and rely on our known thoughts and experiences to guide us. However, in the sleeping state our brain is trying to process everything, resulting in manifestations that bridge past, present, and future realities into a subconscious soup of abstracted yet cohesive possibilities. Often we can barely comprehend what these dreams mean or why certain people, places, or memories have surfaced after being suppressed for so long. Our dreams and nightmares become the vehicle that travels down the vast pathway of our imagination.’
Participants include
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1. Brian Lane
2. Abraham Mong
3. Wuon Gean Ho
4. Kyle Huntress
5. Chris Dacre
6. Mare Blocker
7. Tyna Ontko
8. Chris Rollins
9. Travis Moorehead
10. Virginia Hungate Hawk
11. Amber Chiozza
12. Ashley Shumaker
13. Sean Smoot
14. Emma O’Leary
15. Nikki Barber
16. Ben Beres
17. Charlie Spitzack
18. Amy Oates
19. NateStottrup
Also at the SGCI conference, Marilyn Zornado and Barb Tetenbaum have coordinated a printmaking and animation showreel, which will be displayed on a video monitor in the atrium at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), and at the Univ. of Oregon’s Grey Box Gallery. 33 of 55 submitted films were selected, spanning the entire range of print techniques and created by artists from all over the world. My linocut animation, Shift, which shows a ghostly dancing dress, will be there.
Shift is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTyCksf-cCo
Grey Box Gallery, 24 NW 1st Ave. Portland, OR http://whitebox.uoregon.edu/
22 Mar – 8 Apr, private view on 31 Mar 5–7pm
I wish I could be hopping on a flight to lovely Portland tomorrow to join in the fun… If anyone goes, please take some pictures for me!