We are thrilled to work with Choreographer/Dancer Danielle Ross to present Make the Air Thick, a series of vignettes exploring relationships, need, and “our shared understanding of what we need to feel full”. The piece has been created specifically for our space and is set to live musical performance- not to be missed!

Seating is limited, so consider buying your tickets ahead of time on-line or making a reservation.

Details, performers and ticket purchases can all be found at http://launchpadgallery.org/dance/

About the Show

“The idea of Proximity is to explore how two creatives in a long term relationship influence each other’s art work. They can work in greatly disparate styles with little crossover, but what kind of impact does just being in a relationship with another artist have on one’s own artwork. Not only that, but did the pairing come about because of the art? Or did one artistic expression come about after the other? There are myriad aspects to explore. The intent of this show is touch on these special relationships through an examination of the art and the stories of the people behind it and how they interact.”

Chuck E. Bloom & Patrick M. Dacey, co-curators

Featured Artists

Chuck E. Bloom & Patrick M. Dacey

Emek & Ronni Kobrin

Ashley Costa & Matt Schlosky

Tabor Porter & Greg Carrigan

Jasmine Star & Rick Curtis

Luna Littleleaf & Grant Johnson

Felicity Fenton & Michael T. Hensley

Strange Attractor

I’m a transient Polluted by ideas of my heroic identity. My ego, ensnared by insignificant insights, lumbers forward And during our ignorant stupor The chilled breath of a freshly thawed spring enslaves us Living on the campfire’s edge I cry and yell and beat my drum “Look at that bee” I pronounce and with a childish guise I poke its needled tip

About the Show

This group of works reflects conversations between explorations of mine in different mediums, with specific emphasis on collage, drawing, and painting. The most current pieces inherently respond to the constraints of collage, though they are not bound to its physical limitations. It is their lineage rather, that confines them to the methodology of marking with assembled parts.

My work revolves around identity in a relativistic manner. We are always aware of who we are, though this mental image changes constantly. We rely on friends and events, to help uncover a perceived outward ego yielding a gauge that determines our similarities and differences. Yet this process can be scaled and must be for survival in the complex networks of our world. I seek, like everyone, entanglements with the web around me that draw an excited response from my emotional core and further clarify the boundaries of my identity.

Jascha Owens, May 2010

As always, feel free to

call or email us to set up an appointment.

Have a gorgeous day!

Pin-ups by Hana Haley

Pinhole photographs by Leigh Ryan

About Hana Haley

Hana Haley was born in Portland Oregon in the 1990’s. Opting for a 35mm camera and a 1992 Polaroid camera, her analog photography is used as a diary and storyboard. She practices a variety of amateur photography but focuses on portraits and experimental manipulation. She currently lives in Estacada, Oregon and studies Theatre Arts at MHCC.

Artist Statement

For the past two years my life has been split between the Pacific Northwest and the sunburnt hills of central California, all while my cameras followed. The collection of photographs presented here are memories of the past two years as I remember them in my eyes, a time in my life where imagination, exploration, sunlight and color seemed necessary to function. My photographs are, in essence, my daydreams—a place where my friends and I could live under the coral sun for an afternoon, eternally. This isn’t a hobby and it isn’t a career, it is an instinct. I photograph with a story written in mind, a narrative I couldn’t tell with any written words, but one people could understand and believe for themselves. My hope is that the piece will fuel an imagination, just as the people photographed in front of me had once ignited my own.

About Leigh Ryan

Leigh Ryan hails from a small pilgrim village in Massachusetts. He is the son of a scrap metal sculptor and an abstract painter. He has a fairly normal sister who lives a fancy life in NYC. Apart from toying with rickety old pinhole cameras, he loves to build bicycles and surf. He aspires to live in a van and build his career as a photographer.

Artist Statement

“There is a fifth dimension
beyond which is known to man
it is a dimension as vast and timeless as infinity
it is a middle ground between light and shadow
between science and superstition
and it lies between the the pit of mans fears
and the summit of his knowledge
this is the dimension of the imagination
and it is an area which we will call
The Twilight Zone.”

It is a natural phenomenon that a small hole will gather light and shoot it out the other side. This simple fact is what makes all of photography possible A physicist could tell you how this happens, nobody can tell you why. My camera is simply a small wooden box on the other side of that pinhole. This work is about light passing through a pinhole traveling through the dark void that is my camera and being recorded on film. A simple process with strange results. Sometimes I imagine that with my camera I control the power of a black hole. Stealing strange worlds for display. Within the void of my camera lies the twilight zone.

Kwa will be debuting 2 new bodies of work about family and community life in his first show with Launch Pad, and he’s bringing in some of his talented friends to share music with you at the opening.

Read more about the show HERE

ARTIST STATEMENT

“When I paint I take trips to my home country. When I pick up my brush, it takes me closer to Cameroon. Right now, I am a new parent. I use my paintings to paint the community that I dream for my daughter, thinking about her in my home country, and how festive it will be.

The Village Community series, made with ink, watercolor, and paper, is really about the struggles and joys of the women in my village. Having a daughter has brought back vivid memories of my mothers and how hard they work. The women are working but still maintain elegance and beauty.

I started the Parenthood series, watercolor, ink, & charcoal, when I found out I was going to be a dad. I was so excited I could hardly paint anything else. In the paintings of the family, the baby is always in the safest part of the painting, and very happy. This is the vision I have for my daughter.

The family and the community, is my Rhythm of Life.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

His inspiration for painting comes from watching his elders paint the homes in his village with different colors of clay. As a young child, he started using that clay and creating his own form of art work.

A lot of his art work consists of faces of women because one of his biggest inspirations for his art is his mother, Ewo.

Kwa is the proud father of another powerful little woman, Nila Ewo Kwa.

Check out his mobile gallery project on Kickstarter HERE
Kwa artist resume

BIG THANKS TO DJ Bad Wizard, DJ Fantastic Fax and Archers

About the Show

This exhibition focuses on the work of four artists who have been members of Portland’s Project Grow studio since its inception in 2009. Each artist in this show is an outsider artist by all but the narrowest definitions, however their work needs no such appellation to elicit our utter engagement with it. The opportunity to closely study the work of each of these artists might lead us to question the assumed value of being “inside”; inside the institution, academia, the art world.
We might be tempted to conclude that expression developed unfettered by preoccupations with external judgment, and hyper awareness of relationship to “norms of the form” would be more accurately defined as inside art.

Bios:

Dan McClary is a multifaceted artist; while painting and drawing are the staples of his artistic practice he is always on the look out for new forms of expression, most recently he has been exploring woodworking, weaving and glass as mediums. One consistent thread throughout all of McClary’s visual work is his passion for pattern. Each piece develops within a self-contained system. In addition to the artwork he makes at Project Grow, he is also very involved with caring for Project Grow’s chickens and goats. McClary also volunteers as an assistant for bicycle repair at the Alberta Bike Coop.

At 70 Pasty M. Blasier is perhaps Portland’s oldest and most conceptually challenging emerging artist. Patsy’s long interest in the trappings of business and secretarial objects has blossomed over the last year into an extensive exploration of words and numbers as visual symbols composed on a page. In her Paper Work Patsy writes, and duplicates business forms and correspondence compositions through a unique process most closely resembling the practice of observational drawing, and re-inaction. Recently Blasier has extended her practice to include painting and drawing. These are often mixed medium presentations of her paperwork. Blasier’s paintings reveal an instinctively complex and nuanced sense of color that is almost impossible to deconstruct. She is also the unofficial counselor at Project Grow; she shares her wisdom and compassion as naturally and poetically as she chooses her colors.

David Lechner is known almost exclusively for what might be called his “family portraits.” Through tireless and seemingly effortless repetition Lechner draws and re-draws the names of important people in his life, each name eventually finding a spelling that will remain unchanged. These names are accompanied by deceptively simple stick portraits. These portraits, on close inspection, reveal the evolution of physical symbols and accurately capture personality traits that each subject exhibits. Lechner works most often in quick individual sketches, using any material at hand, eventually moving to mixed medium group portraits made through multiply layering the people in his life onto one surface: The Lechner Family.

Jamond Williams works almost exclusively in ink and watercolor. His paintings are composed from a catalogue of personal symbols and executed with a directness, ease, and fluidity that is almost supernatural. Williams work often first appears to be completely non-objective, however on closer study or once informed of the subject matter his ability to channel the symbolic essence of an object or event becomes mind bogglingly apparent. In addition to his work as an artist at Project Grow Williams is a valuable member of the farming and construction team that is always busy manifesting improvements to the studio and farm.

PROJECT GROW WEBSITE

ONE NIGHT ONLY!!

Friday February 19th, 2010
6-10pm

Featuring DJ Bad Wizard

Holiday in Trivandrum is a one night only fundraiser/silent auction for Suniti and David’s South India expedition scheduled for this March-April. David will be offering a selection of oils and ink drawing spanning the past four years at bargain basement prices- some pieces’ opening bids are starting as low as $45! Don’t miss this chance to acquire a piece of art from one of Portland’s rising stars! See a sample of available works here

Come join us at the Launch Pad gallery and enjoy some fantastic art, funky dance music, Ninkasi Beer, and good old silent auction shenanigans!

Free! All-ages!

Click HERE to be reminded of the awesome solo show David had back in March 2008