Tea Party/Artist Meet and Greet
Saturday, July 27th, 4:30-6:30pm

High Tea hosted by Artist Molly Jochem, formal attire encouraged… contact us for details

About the show

Rochelle Koivunen’s new body of work features wall painting, five large scroll-mounted mixed-media works on paper and a suite of smaller framed portraits.

The work depicts tender relationships between humans and animals- refugees nurturing and caring for each other symbiotically once again as we move away from the anonymity and isolation of consumerism, technology and throw-away culture into a radically changed world where we all have to work together in order to survive.

The show responds to the suffering and destructive relationships that have evolved between humans and the world we live in and expresses hope for the future as we face the imminent arrival of peak oil, over-population, food shortages and natural disasters and are forced to rethink how we live.

Artist Statement

About the artist

Rochelle Koivunen grew up in the country encouraged to make art and climb trees from a very young age. She has always been inspired by blades of grass, critters, and holes dug in fields. Rochelle currently lives in Portland and works out of an old warehouse studio where she paints, dances, and collaborates. After studying the fine arts at Portland State she flew to the Netherlands for two residencies in printmaking and installation. She keeps it lively with lots of collaborative projects, murals, installations, sculpture, and performance. Her work has been described as fantastic, whimsical, and appealing to those young at heart. Through her art she attempts to spread awareness about environmental concerns, enthusiasm for the power of individual action, and inspiration to create. As a member of the collaborative duo Pollution Party with Bettina McEntyre, she creates installations engaging the public in conversation about the role of art in activism and vice versa. Pollution Party has installed several interactive exhibits in Portland in the past year.

Links

Artists
Rochelle Koivunen
Katie Simpson
Pollution Party

Performers
Bryce Panic
Mary Rose
Pelican Ossman
Exoh Exoh
DJ Maxx Bass

Visit again soon for more images of artwork!

High Tea at the Launch Pad Gallery
Hosted by artist Molly Jochem
Sunday, May 18th at 4:30pm

Please come sip delectable tea out of delicate china and discuss the delightful dichotomy of art and life. Brent will be there and available to talk about all sorts of things away from the cacophony of the opening…

Please note: it’s going to be HOT out and Brent is concerned that you will all stay away because of it, so we are going to entice you with COOL: please come sip some refreshing ICED TEA as well as the usual fare

Free! All are welcome, especially artists…

Huge thanks to all the visitors, dancers, volunteers and jump ropers (that’s right, for everyone who went home early, we had a serious double dutch session after you left)

Especially big love to the musicians who gave their love and energy to the opening: The Rostropobitches, an all-womens side project of the Portland Cello Project (link coming soon so you can keep up on their meteoric ascent), The Merce Cunnigham Duo, who made Launch Pad history by turning the freight elevator on the loading dock in to the most intimate theater in Portland, DJ NEALIE NEAL, MR. ROMO and DJ B.HILL and John from Seattle, who brought it hard until very late into the funky, funky night.

None of this would have been possible without Smart Tech A/V, Clint Kaster’s patience and ear for problem solving, and Chris Herring’s obsession with “sexy” lighting.

More photo’s of the opening can be found HERE

The Suspended Garden of Disbelief

“For this group of paintings I have abandoned my usual practice of putting characters in my work, and allowed myself to explore the subtle abstract imagery that is present in many of my paintings, but not always noticeable. For me it is a return to the true nature of painting, to stream of conscience over composition and representation. The resulting images reflect not only complex dreamscapes, but also organic and machine like structures.

The idea for me is to create images that encourage the viewer to spend time in meditation, as if visiting a sublime, lush garden, and that the viewer will have their own emotional experience with the paintings.”

Brent Wear

Read a very insightful Artpdx.com interview with Brent by Chris Haberman HERE

About the Artist

Brent Wear is a painter who has been working and showing in the Pacific Northwest for the past decade. He is a native of Kansas City, MO, and moved to Portland in 1997 to pursue painting. Most Noticed for his paintings of round, toy like birds (and birds in pants), Brent also paints trains, helicopters, cupcakes, crows, and other creatures. His work combines the abstract and representational into an absurd, storybook narrative. The majority of his work is done on found pieces of wood, which he finds in the industrial location of his studio. Brent is a member of the Egg Art collective, an eclectic mix of artists, clothing designers and performers. Brent has volunteered with and had art shows with P:EAR, an art and education program for homeless youth. He is currently working on his first book project, drawing from characters he has developed over his years of painting. In his free time Brent likes to ride his bike and birdwatch. He is also very fond of cats and trains.

About the Rostropobitches

Members of the Portland Cello Project Anna Fritz, Sami Kushnick, Allegra M, and Sonja Myklebust are gathering together to put the Ms. in Mstislav! This collaboration of cellists is in honor of the late Mstislav Rostropovich. This show will feature original works by our very own cellists Anna Fritz, Sami Krushnick, and Gideon Freudman as well as masterpieces by Ravel and surprises yet to be conceived!

Links:
www.brentwear.com
Brent’s Myspace friend up!

Check back for more info and images!

LIVE MUSIC AT 9:30PM…. Be there to support the artist and check out his band: the Black Globes

Who say this about their music:
“Hard driving drums, wicked bass hooks and out of control angular guitar. The black globes play experimental garage rock that Thurston Moore would find despicable. Sometimes furious at other times echo-y and drifting, they may well be a fire hazard in any space going vessel.”

Launch Pad Gallery (in the Egg)
TRUNK SALE/CLOSING EVENT
SUNDAY March 30th
11am-3pm
534 SE Oak st
ALL AGES! Free Coffee!!

Fashions by
Faith Jennings Designs
Piper Ewan

Art by
Brent Wear
(Stay Tuned for a much anticipated solo show at Launch Pad this May)

Meet artist David Stein between 2 - 3pm and have a last look at Lord Have Mercy
Remember, the art lives on, but the Murals are only temporary…

Keep your ears peeled for more shows by The Black Globes and DJ DR YES.

Click here for more photos from the opening…

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Jaik Faulk’s “a ghost, a possessor/The Deposed” is a series of oil paintings resulting from a two year long exploration into the decay of traditional masculinity using deconstructed portraits cultured from photographs of early mid-century Louisiana politicians and figureheads, the anonymous everyman, and his own Grandfather. Faulk’s paintings straddle the line between readable portraits and stripped-down representations of emotion and mood. Claustrophobic and sensual, the muted colors and elegant desperation in these portraits challenges the viewer to examine what our culture demands of contemporary men in their role as providers and oppressors.

Artist Statement

“These works have come about as a response to found images of politicians from Louisiana in the early twentieth century. Originally, I saw in them a style, and fashion that called to mind my grandfather. In these images was the feel and sense of location I remembered from old government buildings, hard polished distressed wood, tile floors and sounds of dress shoes on hard floor. It was an old world I had known only as a facade, deeper though; in these images what became poignant was the weight I saw in their eyes. It was what I could tie to my own world, in that; this weight still exists today though the time of these individuals has past. Specifically, a class struggle, power relations in our socio-political structure, came to be the theme. How these elements of theme broke down/built up these characters in my mind informed my rendering of them.

There is a correlation between the aging/evolution of an individual and that of an institution. For this reason the figure as subject/point of departure drives my current body of work. It is that one can respond in a more personal way when faced with another figure. I see painting as intimate and I found it necessary to strip these works down in order to get at what is most essential to the whole. Specific persons and images are only used as points of reference, a start, soon this source is left behind and I directly respond to what is in front of me. The result I seek in all this is a record of the process of looking.

This is the result of a two-year exploration into the visual rendering of these relationships. I have focused on conveying a process of evolution from a state of innocence into an affected ragged presence. These figures are what I see as coming to ruin. I believe they touch on the death of an ideal; all that we grew up believing as just, has been turned on its head or discarded. Now what is left is an emptiness and a saturated weight, a thickening in the air. How do we go forward?

I am not interested in illustration but rather elements of rendering which place these figures in our world, the play of light and dark, proper proportions and movement. I shift and play with these elements in order to bring about this underlying ghost. It is a possession, something other, a looming aura, that drives and uses these characters.”

Jaik Faulk

Check back for more images and information soon!

See more of Jaik’s work at www.jaikfaulk.com

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