Portland’s monthly First Thursday art openings are a great way to discover new art, hangout with friends, and gain some inspiration. We were able to make it to Stephen Scott Smith’s amazing show at Breeze Block Gallery (323 NW 6th Ave) last week and snap some photos of what he has been up to. Stephen displays an array of artistic talents over many different mediums including photography, sculpture, and large-scale graphite drawings. Stephen’s current show at Breeze Block, dubbed “Burlap 2B”, is the follow-up to his Burlap show back in November of 2010. Check out some of his work below and be sure to make it to the show before it closes on October 1st.
BURLAP 2B
BURLAP debuted in November 2010 and was a social comment on mainstream media culture, marketing and contemporary art’s relationship with nature. Smith took large scale photography and internet images examining sex, fame, consumerism, and privacy. Framed in seven candy colors, the images were stacked one in front of the other, creating a sculptural object. The vibrant image suite was then juxtaposed with a 25 foot, dying Copper Beech tree. Ultimately, BURLAP was a meditation on the disconnection between the veneer of a rabid modern society and the natural world.
BURLAP 2B is about Smith’s own nature, mining similar themes from BURLAP but from the perspective of a developing adolescent in the 1980’s. Using the wood from the Copper Beech tree, the seven original colors and the ideas explored in BURLAP as parameters, Smith explores his memory of family, pop culture, nascent sexuality, art, politics, and AIDS through large scale drawings, wood carvings, installation and video.
BURLAP 2B is a celebration of the mysteries and complexities of growing up and was created as a foil to the colder, adult lens of BURLAP.
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