Eva and Franco Mattes, "Jenna Varun"

On view this month at the Augen Gallery is Eva and Franco Mattes' Avatars and Other Images from Alternate Universes, an extension of their recent exhibition 13 Most Beautiful Avatars. The prints emerge from avatars built in the Mattes's exploration of Second Life, an online virtual world where users can create the ultimate idealized self. Borrowing from Pop Art sensibility, the Mattes have brought Warhol's influence into the 21st century, "scrutiniz[ing] simultaneous concepts of 'beauty' and 'reality', [and] pointing to the heightened relevance of a post-20th-century cult of superficiality."

Opening reception • 5-8:30pm • April 3
Augen Gallery NW • 716 NW Davis • 503.546.5056



Jenevive Tatiana, from "Hot House-ism"

Jenevive Tatiana's Hot House-ism is showing this month in PDX Contemporary's Window Project space. Hot House-ism seeks to expose the potentially dangerous, even obscene, process of visual association. Utilizing materials that evoke "the language of decadence, artifice and kitsch," Tatiana explores the literary and philosophical allusions of the symbol of the flower, from Derrida to Baudelaire.

Opening reception • 5-8pm • April 3
PDX Contemporary Art • 925 NW Flanders • 503.222.0063



Jeff Jahn, "Eutrophication" (detail) site specific installation

PORT's own Jeff Jahn is having a solo exhibition this month in PNCA's Manuel Izquierdo Sculpture Gallery. Eutrophication, "a biological term referring to an overabundance of life and decay, reflects Jahn's interest in entropic systems." His work departs from the stiff rationalism of minimalist sculpture and architectural geometry to explore "space living upon space."

Opening reception • 6-9pm • April 3
PNCA Manuel Izquierdo Sculpture Gallery • 1241 NW Johnson St. • 503.226.4391



Paula Rebsom, "Houses"

For the month of April, Tilt presents a body of work by Paula Rebsom, developed during a residency at the Ucross Foundation. In Outskirts, Rebsom creates prairie dog houses to explore issues of urban sprawl and development, and its underlying meaning for the relationship between humans and animals.

Opening reception • 6-9pm • April 3
Tilt Gallery & Project Space • 625 NW Everett #106 • 908.616.5477



Eric White, "Collusion: Behemoth"

Opening this month at Quality Pictures is New Paintings by Brooklyner Eric White. His rich, surreal paintings draw both from popular culture and quotidian life, creating a body of work that is simultaneously alienating and bizarrely familiar.

Update: Don't miss the party/cook-out in honor of White's exhibition at the Mississippi Ballroom, Friday April 4, 7pm, at 833 N. Shaver St.

Also showing at QPCA 2 super tight shows from last month: Laura Fritz's Interspace and Mark Hooper's Photographs.

Opening reception • 6-9pm • April 3
Quality Pictures Contemporary Art • 916 NW Hoyt • 503.227.5060



Clifford Gleason, "Untitled," 1966

As spring (and the Northwest) finally begins to blossom, Pulliam Deffenbaugh brings us an exhibition of Northwest Masters. The show highlights the "luminous" richness of the Northwest school. Artists include Guy Anderson, Louis Bunce, Kenneth Callahan, Byron Gardner, Paul Horiuchi, William Ivey, George Johanson, David McCosh, A. C. Runquist, Amanda Snyder, Jay Steensma, Milton Wilson, and Duane Zaloudek, as well as rare work by Clifford Gleason, who is just beginning to be fully appreciated for his contributions to NW art.

Opening reception • 5:30-8pm • April 3
Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery • 929 NW Flanders • 503.228.6665



Lucinda Parker in the studio

This month, the Laura Russo gallery is exhibiting two wonderful regional artists, Lucinda Parker and Geoffrey Pagen. Inspired by natural forms, Parker's vibrant painting stays firmly within the boundaries of abstraction to explore classical questions of form and figure/ground relationship. Pagen, who has been the Director of Ceramics at Reed College since 1979, also draws from nature to inspire his "powerful and primal" clay works. He utilizes modern aesthetics and a wide variety of processes to create objects more concerned with the physicality of the clay form than its functionality.

Opening reception • 5-8pm • April 3
Laura Russo Gallery • 805 NW 21st AVE • 503.226.2754

definitely a bunch of spring time shows... time to catch a Wedekind play like Spring Awakening too?

Also, it is interesting how Varun's avatar nose looks sooo very surgically augmented... the fake imitates the botched surgical fake?

Yes it must be Spring, because all of a sudden this month feels very alive. There have been some very interesting shows over the last couple months, but they have been your rather quiet Winter shows. It's time for the blockbusters! :)

Jeff's show should be interesting. I am always intrigued by the artwork of a person that is also a critic and curator.

You know It's definitely a show that looks like something a curator would create... in the main gallery I didn't put anything on the walls it's all above the walls and on the floor... sort of like outlining my spatial thinking about curating a show and then not putting a show there. It's definitely a springtime show too.

Also, Jacqueline Ehlis and I co-curated the BFA sculpture show in the same space last January and that definitely helped in terms of understanding how to provoke the white box yet respect it. It's a complicated gallery space (which attracted me) and it's more complicated now.

It's also nice to get a sense of what PNCA students are like... I know the faculty much better than the students... I tend to only interact with PNCA students when I'm part of a thesis review. I feel like I know other art schools around the country a lot better.... which is strange. Maybe it is because PNCA is changing so much? They are a moving target.