Lucas Foglia " Natural Order" at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland

Lucas Foglia " Natural Order" at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland


"I am Nature, am I" is the question I asked myself as a city dweller. I dreamed of living of the grid but that was when I was 12 and thought living on an isolated island would be the ultimate dream fulfilling experience. Of course I learned that this was a pipe dream. The people in this photographic exhibit are living that pipe dream made it reality to a certain degree.The natural order is that there is no natural order but chaos which forms into harmony just to dissolve back into chaos. Everything can be turned into a religious belief even living of the grid and one doesn't even have to be religious. Stunning portraits illuminate the sacredness in the ordinary, in the wild, in the hardship of wanting to get back to ones roots. We were once just another animal but we learned to transcend our instincts to be able to shape the world to our liking rather then being its victim. Of course in the process we have become victims to our likings.The only absolute is that there is no absolute no matter how far we live off the grid we can't escape the humanness which sets us apart from Nature. We have become masters of our narrative even if the narrative means a return to more primitive times we are still painfully aware of it. Once consciousness is turned on it is impossible to turn it back off again. We are as guilty as charged by ourselves.

more info at

www.blueskygallery.com

"Soul Searcher" by Richard Schemmerer

RICHARD SCHEMMERER

"Soul Searcher"

Mixed media on board


33x21

2013




Searcher

What we call the soul could be just an illusion. Never mind! Let's try to find something deep with us anyway. When you find it you can name it anyway you want it. Atman, Spirit, Psyche, a divine part that lives on maybe but nobody knows. It helps to stay on a positive path doing the right things. The soul as in opposite to the ego which only seems concerned with survival on this earthly plain.

The Soul searcher who aspires to reach out beyond the physical deep into the space, into the mind of the Universe and the idea that everything reunites after death.

What you see is not all you get. The body is just a vessel to carry our soul forward on its path to enlightenment. When you are willing to search you will find but what you find seems to be slightly different for everyone and that's okay.

"Objectified Desire" by Richard Schemmerer

"Objectified Desire"

mixed media by Richard Schemmerer

part of "HEADS" a group show at Mark Woolley Gallery



Objectified

Desire becomes objectified if we actually try to impersonate an ideal which is in most cases unreachable. An ideal that is promoted by companies that live off our need to be special. Most of us are critical of our own image in one way or another mostly because we compare it to a superficial standard. These beauty standards are never reachable for us because they are altered us soon as a new production line hits the target market. We lived through periods in time where to be heavy even fat was considered the ultimate standard for beauty and wealth. Today its the ever skinnier skinny for girls or the ever more pumped bodies for men. We have now reached a critical moment in our disconnect to what's natural and beneficial for us and spend lots of money to surgically or through drug intake to enhance our natural given looks. We personify objectification and see others as mere objects for our desires.



HEADS curated by Alex Frum

"the anatomical ‘HEAD’ human or not, or any interpretation thereof"

May 18th - Jun. 9th, 2013
Opening Reception: SATURDAY May 18th 5-9pm
(use theater building entrance after 8pm)
event open to general public

Art at Charles A. Hartmann Gallery

Selections Four: Recently Acquired Paintings and Photographs


with

Ana Fidler

Hayley Barker

Corey Arnold

& others




more info at


http://www.hartmanfineart.net/

"Self Knowledge" by Richard Schemmerer

"Self Knowledge"
by Richard Schemmerer

mixed media on wood panel

Sunday comics acrylic paint collaged zines



Disambiguation

All I ever wanted to know about life I tried to find in comics all I ever learned about myself I learned from comics. It's comical of course it is also not true. I read the big classics like Tolstoy and Dante's inferno while my peers filled their brains with little scripts of simplified archetypes.

The funny thing is that we both properly learned similar lessons. The difference was that I wanted to be like the underdogs the ones who fought against the tyranny of wealth while my friends wanted to be like the heroic villains who rather arose crashed and burned.

Can we ever know another if we don't know ourselves and what does it take to know oneself. Know thyself is one of the foremost of western philosophy commands.

The major part in the teachings of the Vedanta's deal with the self and how to transcend it. It means that knowledge doesn't become God and we serve it but that it serves us to create a better world by sharing it.

We live in conflict within and without and what we know today may not mean much tomorrow but the way we know ourselves does help to stay steady when everything around us marches along the path of progress.




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HEADS curated by Alex Frum

"the anatomical ‘HEAD’ human or not, or any interpretation thereof"

May 18th - Jun. 9th, 2013
Opening Reception: SATURDAY May 18th 5-9pm
(use theater building entrance after 8pm)
event open to general public

DAN NESS, PETER LaVIGNE-CHALEK
MARIA JOAN DIXON, K. SCOTT RAWLS, DAVID COYNE,
NATHAN GUILFOYLE, AUSTIN SCHNELL,
KAT OSTROW, RICHARD SCHEMMERER, BRENDAN KELLY SCOTT,
M.J. ANDERSON (sculpture)

FULL DETAILS: www.markwoolley.com/heads.html

MARK WOOLLEY GALLERY at Pioneer
700 SW 5th Ave., Ste. 4110
Portland, OR 97204
All work on view during regular gallery hours:
THURS. - SUN. 12-6 pm
-or by appointment www.markwoolley.com

Carrie Mae Weems atThe Portland Art Museum

Carrie Mae Weems

Three Decades of Art

FEB 2 – MAY 19, 2013

more info at



https://www.portlandartmuseum.org/carriemaeweems

At the Museum

A very successful exhibit comes to an end. It was amazingly well executed and their is not much one can say besides go see it before it closes this Sunday. It has to be felt to understand the impact an artist can have on society.

Jaq Chartier "Ultra Marine" at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland

Jaq Chartier
Ultra Marine
New Paintings and Drawings About the Sea


Capturing beauty is not an easy thing but Jaq Chartier did just that. You can imagine an unreal world that is rife with pleasures and everything lives in harmony of course such a world would be not sustainable and not what the inventor had imagined.even though the title states the mission to depict the wonders of the sea to me they are abstractions of perfection, perfection in painting that is.The science of painting is reduced to visual pleasure to give us the essence what it means to search for meaning. This search is about the wonder not about the facts of life.