We present recent works by Portland artist Elise Wagner. Butters Gallery has represented Wagner’s work since 2006. Nationally recognized, Wagner is best known for her deft handling of encaustic while her fascination with science leads her vision for both composition and color.

About the work in her upcoming exhibition, Solar Flare, Wagner writes:

My current body of work investigates solar flares, sun storms and the magnetic forces that they embody. I find it fascinating that the sun is so fragile and enormous and that all living things on our planet so rely on it. This duality and the beautiful violence of the image itself is captivating.

These images began showing up in my work as early as 1996. I originally came across images of solar flares in a 1957 book about weather patterns.

Now, the relevance of their impact is ever more striking on our modern world. With the advancement of satellite and digital technology, it is possible to observe solar flares more closely and in three dimensions. Recently, NASA scientists have predicted a peak in the occurrence of solar flares that will bring on a “perfect storm” impacting human life by 2012.

Creating a magma-like texture with molten beeswax and using the fire of a blowtorch for these images of sun storms has created a somewhat coincidental but symbiotic feel to the overall result and process of their making. The work has taken on a new physicality in an attempt to interpret movement and the massive force of solar flares on the sun.

Painting for me acts as a metaphor for all that that is unknown, intangible and incomprehensible to us as human beings. Though my work is driven by my own visualization and nostalgia of science’s attempt towards a definition of order, the anachronism in the work lies in its interpretation and contemporary quality.

Elise Wagner, 2010

Also featuring:

PSU FOCUS, a group exhibition of Portland State University alumni featuring recent works by Carolyn Cole, Gilles Foisy, Matthew Haggett, Christopher Perry, Mylan Rakich, Julie Rall and Elise Wagner.

And featured in the conference room....
Mixed media works by Idaho based Lynne Haagensen. These works will relate to an special storefront installation in downtown Portland titled "World's Away" done in collaboration with Haagensen and neon artist George Wray. The installation is located at 522 SW 5th Avenue and is on exhibit through the month of July.