Anna Fidler: Vampires & Wolfmen

Portland, OR—Charles A. Hartman Fine Art presents Vampires and Wolf Men, the stunning latest body of work by Portland-based artist Anna Fidler. Seeking to construct a myth surrounding characters from the past, and using as source material photographs culled from the Oregon Historical Society, Anna Fidler creates monumental portraits of individuals from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that transfer the energies of the past into contemporary topographies of the fantastic and the mundane. In paintings that feel at once ephemeral and precise, Fidler’s exquisitely balanced renderings of persons both prominent and unknown create a subtle but powerful tension as these figures are recreated as vampires and werewolves. Fidler’s work offers commentary and dialogue with our twenty-first century fascination with a subject that is both timeless and of-the-moment. Vampires and Wolf Men will be on view from September 5 to September 29, 2012, at Charles A. Hartman, 134 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, Oregon

Painkiller

Painkiller_robert_frank

Painkiller is an original exhibition of 48 Polaroid images by groundbreaking photographer Robert Frank taken from the 1970s through the present. Blue Sky  gallery in Portland closely collaborated with Frank in selecting photographs to be reproduced in a special series of enlarged prints for this show. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of photography, Frank has redefined the aesthetic of both the still and the moving image via his pictures and films. Blue Sky presents Frank’s work again in Portland, having first shown his photographs in 1981. Painkiller closes this week at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

Pretty Girls Wander: The Photography of Raymond Meeks

pretty_girls_wander_raymond_meeks
raymond_meeks_photography

Portland, OR — Charles A. Hartman Fine Art Gallery presents Amwell | Continuum, the newest body of work by critically acclaimed artist Raymond Meeks. In evocative black and white and color images, Meeks explores ideas of home and stability against the backdrop of personal transition and larger socioeconomic upheaval. These quietly compelling, beautiful photographs of lost and troubled spaces, constant gardens, and portraits of his daughter, construct a narrative that posits a sense of loss while steadfastly asserting a belief in both resilience and hope. Meeks writes, "I've believed it was important to have a strong sense of place, to identify “home”, even as for us, home, family and place are ideals which have taken on a relative meaning. I photograph close to home as memory loses structure, its architecture; trying to make light speak from the fixed edges of rooms long vanished." Amwell | Continuum is one view October 5 – 29, 2011 at the Charles A. Hartman Fine Art Gallery - opening reception with the artist on October 6. A limited number of copies of Raymond Meeks' newest artist book, Pretty Girls Wander, are available from the gallery for $325. Created to mark the occasion of this exhibition, this fine volume reproduces a number of the works in AMWELL | CONTINUUM.