Past Exhibitions - 1122 Gallery

The Sponges
Rachel Jones

Opening Reception: Friday, October 12th 6-10pm
Closing Reception: Friday, November 2nd 6-10pm

The Sponges are a set of charcoal drawings, dark and intensely sensitive beings created to take on some of the burden, hardship and sadness we all endure. This exhibit will invite participants to interact with each sponge in an experiential way.

Rachel Jones is a Portland, Oregon based artist. She holds a BFA in Painting from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Since graduating in 2007, Rachel has been working in a variety of media. Her work is largely made up of portrait style pieces, with a special focus on the materials being used.

Inner Weather
Claiborne Colombo

September 14th-October 5th, 2018
Opening: Friday, September 14th 6-10pm

Inspired by maps and the natural world that surrounds her in the Pacific Northwest, Claiborne Colombo translates her experiences around place into deconstructed landscapes using a range of techniques and expressions -- intricate lines, guttural marks, bold colors and organic forms.

Working on both canvas and paper, she uses transparent layers of acrylic, graphite, charcoal, and pastels which she applies with both spontaneity and precision. The layers intersect and combine to reveal the stratification of her process without compromising the raw nature of each material.

Claiborne uses colors that flow, vibrate and bounce off one another. They act as a compass, helping the eye navigate through the layered terrain. In play with the swaths of color are more detailed marks. Her marks capture movement, subtle shifts, and drastic divides. Throughout her work, lines and shapes are repeated and transformed, flowing across the expanse. Some of her marks are planned, but at times, her hands work faster than her mind with each mark informing the next, creating an organic and meditative flow.

Altogether, these elements form a dynamic language that guides the narrative of each abstracted map, building a journey full of fluctuations, pauses, crossroads and moments of discovery.

The Feeling Remains Even After the Glitter Fades
Jess Curran

June 1st- 29th, 2018
Opening: Friday, June 1st 6-10pm

Everything is connected by energy. Jess Curran explores this through the process of painting. After placing a layer of paint down, it is left for many hours. The way the new layers interact with the previous ones indicates a sense of vulnerability. Nothing is permanent. The overlapping layers express how we all leave marks on each other’s lives.

The Inside is the Outside
May 4th- 31st, 2018
Carin Rodenborn + Abbie Miller
Opening: Friday, May 4th 6-10pm with a performance by The Whirlies
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 5th 12-1pm

Abbie Miller and Carin Rodenborn have been engaged in a rolling conversation about the relevance of abstraction and the seduction of materiality for over a decade. Their shared interest in spatial relationships and process, and how empirical experience is informed by the ongoing correspondence between the two, has opened up a reimagining of abstraction for each artist in the studio. This is the first time they will be sharing their work in exhibition, side by side -- a visual and material layer of the their conversation.

Abbie Miller (b. 1981, Billings, Montana) received her BFA from the University of Wyoming in 2004 with a minor in apparel construction and holds a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from Maryland Institute College of Art, 2005 and a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, 2007. She has had solo exhibitions at the Missoula Art Museum, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; Art Lab, Jackson, Wyoming. Miller has been included in group shows throughout North America, including the Craft and Folk Art Museum, L.A.; Reading Public Museum, Pennsylvania; Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, New York. Her sculptures are included in the permanent collections at the Portland Art Museum and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a recipient of a Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship (2013), a Contemporary Northwest Artist Award (2013), and a Metcalf Award (2014).

Carin Rodenborn is a visual artist and writer living and working in Denver, Colorado. She received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2007, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005, and her BFA from Iowa State University in 1995. She is an Assistant Professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Before teaching at RMCAD, she taught at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. She is Co-Founder and Co-Editor of Dime and Honey, an online art publication that looks at and celebrates the intersection of art and life. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, including in the Texas Biennial and the publication, New American Paintings. She works with both traditional and non-traditional materials in a contemplative painting and drawing practice that explores surface, objecthood, color, language, spatial relationships, and the spirit of materiality. Both her visual work and writing play with hybrid forms.