Portland, OR, December 29, 2007 – Quality Pictures is pleased to present “Thrift” a solo exhibition of photographs by Chicago-based photographer Brian Ulrich. The exhibition will be Ulrich’s first in the Pacific Northwest, and runs from January 11 – March 1, 2008. There will be a reception for Mr. Ulrich at the gallery Friday January 11th from 6-9 pm.
Ulrich has received wide acclaim for his photographs that examine American consumer culture. His “Copia” project is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live. In 2001 citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project is a direct response to that advice.
Through large scale photographs taken within both the big-box retail stores and the thrift shops that house our recycled goods, Copia explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising.
Copia is composed of several chapters, currently Retail, [-Thrift, and Backrooms. These chapters further document notions of social class, excess, and corporate ideologies.
Quality Pictures will present thirteen medium to large format photos from the “Thrift” chapter.
Works in the show include “Untitled (Shoe Pile)”. Here, Ulrich has captured a room full of sneakers and transformed the banal scene into an ocean of discarded shoes rushing past cardboard cliffs. Ulrich creates a similar epic feel in “Untitled (Toys)”
Brian Ulrich lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. His works have been exhibited internationally including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL and at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.
Ulrich’s work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI, the Margulies Collection, Miami, FL, the LaSalle Bank collection, Chicago, IL and others.
It's Kind of Endless Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculpture by new Portland talent 12.06.07 - 01.26.08
Quality Pictures is pleased to present "It's Kind of Endless" a group show featuring paintings, drawings and sculpture by eleven artists working in Portland Oregon.
The show marks the gallery's one-year anniversary and presents works that, although unrelated, are defining what is coming next from the Pacific Northwest.
Artists in the exhibition include: Alex Felton, Dana Dart-McLean, Nathaniel Price, Meg Peterson, Corey Lunn, Midori Hirose, Kristie Louderbough, Jason Traeger, Kevin Abell, M Blash and Taryn Tomasello.
Kevin Abell will present drawings and sculpture that in part hint at and make quiet gestures of security and rigidity and imminent destruction. Dana Dart-McLean will present two works on paper that are intuitive visual poems about memory. They celebrate the individual particulars of personal memory, using transcription as an opportunity for shared reverie. "Thought Police" (below) will be featured in the exhibit. Alex Felton will show raw, stripped down sculptures in the show including "Ground Zero" and "Door". "Ground Zero" is made of a kind of papier mache pulp. Torn pieces of rag paper, jeans, and ash are held together with wheat paste formed into a desolate ground plane. "Door", made of mat board and bass wood, rises from it -an abstracted door frame- unfinished. Midori Hirose's work combines diametric shapes; a balance of geometric and fluid form. She uses bright, vivid colors and abstractions, uniting disoriented, familiar shapes in a whimsical manner. Taking a nod from the intuitive nature of folk art, Kristie Louderbough uses minimal materials to create work that has an earnest but irreverent approach to creating environments that subtly come into direct opposition of a high-tech, high-gloss culture. Corey Lunn creates somewhat creepy, comic-book-colored sculptures that reference a pop saturated culture gone awry. Nathaniel Price will contribute a painting and drawing to the exhibit. The painting, a rendering of an electo-magnetic ball was inspired by the childhood experience of exploring Spencer's, a mall store that carries such objects. Meg Peterson's delicate and beautiful works on paper use cloud like imagery combined with ideas about communication to create works that are ephemeral and yet substantial. Taryn Tomasello's paintings revisit the abstract expressionist movement with a new emphasis on color and form. Her densely painted works teeter on the brink of representation and are heavily worked adding tension to the composition. Jason Traeger combines traditional painting technique with a unique color palette and bizarre imagery to create large, fantastic paintings that tiptoe into the world of surrealism.
