Please see my website at http://billsharppaintings.com
My paintings are still on view at Portland’5 Centers for the Arts along with fellow artists, Shawn Demarest and Beth Kerschen. The show will be up until Feb 3. If you’re in the neighborhood, please stop in. The lobby, where the show is hanging is open until 5pm during the day as well as performance nights. Below are some snaps of the installation.
Portland’5 Centers for the Arts – 1111 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97205
Another new painting to be included in the upcoming exhibit, “Surroundings” with Portland artists, Shawn Demarest and Beth Kerschen at Portland’5 Performing Arts Center Dec 2018 through Jan 2019.
As I’ve been making work related to the upcoming show themed “Surroundings” I have not been able to ignore the increasing evidence of homelessness in the urban landscape of Portland and it’s started to show up in the paintings. If I divorce myself from the social and personal tragedy of it and look at it from a visual perspective, it is an undeniable ‘texture’ to our city’s landscape. I watch as camps come and go and come again. They spread out as other campers join and the detritus they generate grows as time passes with no sanitation services. It’s troubling and it’s an undeniable part of our current landscape.
I’ll be part of a three person show, along with Shawn Demarest and Beth Kerschen in December at the Portland’5 Center for the Performing Arts. Shawn and Beth and I showed together in 2013 and I’m looking forward to hanging together again.
The theme of the show is “Surroundings” and I’m including work that’s come out of my experience of my exterior as well as interior surroundings. Above is a new piece for this show. I believe the opening for the show is the First Thursday in December. More details to follow.
In July, it was five years since my wife, Leslie, died from breast cancer. I wrote quite a lot about it here, at the time. I stopped writing about it after a year but, of course, the process of grief continues. It seems strange to think of all that’s happened without her presence since that time. I’ve learned a lot about myself through this process. I can’t always tell if I’m processing or indulging but I’m sometimes moved to paint something that arises out of the experience of loss and attachment.
My life is good. I’ve met a wonderful woman to share it with. I think of what I’ve lost and try to balance it with what I’ve gained.
I’ve been working on this painting for 6 months. Centennial Mills viewed from the Broadway Bridge as it was several years ago. It was a favorite site of mine in Portland that no longer exists. All that remains is the building with the water tower. The city had plans to redevelop it but they gave up and, over the last year or two, most of it has been torn down.
I’m sad to see so much of what I consider to be Portland being demolished and gentrified.
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I haven’t been posting much lately for various reasons, one of which is that I was hoping to move my blog to a new website I’ve been trying to get going but I’ve had a difficult time finding someone to help me with it. I’m not familiar with web development. It doesn’t seem like it should be this hard to get a web site up.
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Work in progress …
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I really didn’t like that last image I posted. I’ve worked a bit more on the painting and this is what it looks like now. It’s still on the easel but I didn’t want to leave the old image here.
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This painting was inspired by one of the people I leaned on most heavily over the last year and a half. I didn’t start out to make a painting of an angel but it just looks like that to me.
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I’m playing with the idea of painting some figures in interiors
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There’s one more week to catch my show at Brian Marki Fine Art.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by and especially for those who will take home a painting next week.
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Bill Sharp - paintings blog 