Portland painter Adam Sorensen makes fantastical landscape paintings filled with schematic surreal elements. It's a welcome variation on the Northwest fascination with landscape. This show, False Fjords, will brighten the cloudiest of days. What's more, Sorensen's statement wins the copywriting award of the month: "The Narrative of the Romantics had long been to capture and present the awe and strength of natural vistas. Landscape, which was often found on the fringes of human exploration, was imbued with mystery and danger, and was therefore stirring to the viewer. It seems as if humanity has conquered the once harrowing wild, and in turn made it strange. This is where my work sits, attached a century later to the romantic narrative. The abstract, the awkward, and the absurd have much more of a presence in contemporary life, and cannot be ignored when painting the landscape. Emphasizing the strangeness of modern nature, and embellishing it with contemporary aesthetic ideas, is in a way, a type of contemporary romanticism." At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders until 8
Rain. Puddle Town is an art show themed on rain. Artists Robert Pellicer, Scott Rohlfs, Angel Davis, Sam Tudyk, Dane Svenningsen, Max Kaufman, Timothy Karpinski, Keenan Havens, Jessica Rosario, Eliott Wall, Geneva Smith, Rudy Fig, Eli Effenberger, Miette, Sophie Franz, Tatiana Krasovski, Jason Graham, Eatcho, Josh Heilaman, Lily Pham, Andy Gouveian, Ricardo Rodriguez, Alex Willan, Nati, Jun Seo Hahm and Clone provide their response to rain's inspiration. At Compound www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th
The Everett Station Lofts are always recommended. They change hands aperodically, each occupant has been curated and the ground floor spaces commit to open their living rooms an evening a month to you. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett and 6th.
The Desoto building bounded by NW Broadway, Davis and Park includes several established galleries, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Blue Sky, with its Nines Gallery. All are often worth a stop. This month in that building the Charles Hartman gallery has Fish-Work. Corey Arnold makes documentary photographs of the life on fishing boats in the North seas. At one time fishing was local. Today ever larger boats travel further to the last fisheries yet to be endangered. Meanwhile fish farming is not only causing pollution by concentrating fish waste beyond local carrying capacity, fish farming consumes about 1/3 of wild fish caught in the form of fish meal. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th
G Lewis Clevenger makes abstract paintings of rectangular pattern. He is loosening up his patterns while maintaining a strong sense of beauty. His pallette and the textures are worth studying. At Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com until 8
Stumptown downtown has a holiday themed show. Gretchen Vaudt is a multiartist and curator for a time at Albina Press. Her work spans photography, ceramics and design. This evening Going Home is a group of individual small works, each as different as a snowflake reprising winter holiday sense memories of her Midwest childhood. Another Midwesterner, Norm Sajovie, shows Polaroids Holiday Drifter of a Christmas wandering Portland's mainly empty streets for inspiration. At Stumptown www.stumptown.com 128 SW 3rd
Skate decks as a canvas are pretty archival. Ditto snowboards. Someday they'll show up on some museum walls. Monsieur T is an artistic streetwear concern, based in Portland. Monsieur T has invited many artist friends to make designs on decks or create skate themed art and this is the result. Jeremyville, Andrew Pommier,Bwana Spoons, Lance Mountain, Martin Ontiveros, APAK, Adam Haynes, Le Merde, Jon Humphries, Ruben Sanchez, Fred Mortagne, Huskmitnavn, Andrew Groves, I Love Dust, Arbito, Shawn Wolfe, Ryan Berkley, Scrappers Betsy Walton, Jay Howell, Klutch, Mark Warren Jacques, Lee Zeman, Jeff Proctor, Tom Webb, Brett Superstar and Steve Matthews have made work. For the opening of the show, which will also be online artwise throughout the month, Kez spins. At Hecklewood www.hecklewood.com 114 NW 3rd
Portlander's are all weather skaters everywhere. There is another skate deck art show tonight, benefiting Complete Skate, a youth tutoring and skating project in schools. Many Portland artists have made decks which are being auctioned online, ending 8PM tonight. You can see the decks in person at the auction closing party at DWR. Details at www.completeskate.org/ondeck/ DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett until 8
PNCA photograd Chloé Richard ’06 shows candid portraits of friends from LA and Berlin. The work has a French New Wave feel, very light and real. The show's title makes the reference too. And, well, she's French. At Valentines 232 SW Ankeny
