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 REVIEW Women of Distinction Two excellent exhibitions by Portland female artists pay indirect tribute to the late Bonnie Bronson. BY KATE BONANSINGA |
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Sustenance by Christine Bourdette Place and Language: Passing from Hand to Hand by Susan Harlan Elizabeth Leach, 207 SW Pine St., 224-0521 Ends April 17 Bonnie Bronson was a well-recognized figure in the Portland art community of the late 1970s and '80s. With her wall constructions, paintings and drawings, she attained a public stature that eluded many of her female contemporaries. A foundation was created in her name after her accidental death at the age of 50 on the slopes of Mount Adams; each spring it awards a Bonnie Bronson Fellowship Award to a female artist of distinction living in Portland. The eighth recipient, Harlem-born Adriene Cruz, who is nationally known for her work in textiles, accepted the honor on March 29. The ceremony took place, as it does each year, at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, where a few of Bronson's pieces enlivened the rear gallery. Chac VI, a carved-wood wall sculpture, painted green, blue and reddish-orange, with just a splash of yellow, looks like a fantastic ship sailing from the Far East. Nepali Windows, a series of abstract watercolors with a similar palette, references inviting, exotic landscapes. While Bronson's work was an obvious choice to set the stage for the commemoration, Leach's two other solo shows, which are still on view, were equally appropriate. Both Christine Bourdette (who won the Bronson Award in 1992) and Susan Harlan are laudably accomplished women who live in Portland. Christine Bourdette titles her show of sculptures and drawings Sustenance. Images of potatoes, human figures and sets of wings recur throughout. Wings are prominent in two pieces that draw on the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. The wall-mounted Daedalus is a club-like form set on its side and paired with a three-dimensional mirror image. Constructed from old, decorative wood molding, it's an odd set of wings, awkward in its weight but powerful in its promise. Icarus sits on the floor, like two sculptural infinity signs crossed at their centers. The wood that composes it is charred, like the wings of its namesake. In Icons, a miniature cast replica of the ancient Greek sculpture Winged Victory sits next to a bowling-pin form with rabbit ears. The latter, one of Bourdette's signature forms over the past several years, is covered in stitched rawhide. In this pairing, an icon of history and femininity is balanced by a humble, comic alter ego. Humility is represented by the image of the potato, which appears in several of the drawings. In one, a graceful, white-winged figure is surrounded by this dirty root vegetable, plentiful and substantial. With such grounding, she can fly free and high. Susan Harlan likewise represents that which lies below and above us. Her layered paintings in ink on linen over a gessoed panel are abstracted maps or charts, some of the earth and others of the heavens. The artist spent last summer in Turkey and Greece and visited several archaeological digs. Some of the paintings that sprang from this experience indicate overviews of the gridded sites; others, such as Fresco Night, reveal the dim light of a starry night sky. In Site: Paestum a carved outline of a figurative form is filled with squiggles of life. Passing from Hand to Hand includes a reference to human ribs or lungs and a spinal column, a favorite subject from Harlan's past work. Though her palette is dark, tending toward blacks, browns and deep grays, a bit of color appears in a few of the pieces. Veil I and Veil II, placed inconspicuously in the gallery, are the smallest but strongest pieces, with lighter hues and livelier lines. The exhibitions are conceptually compatible. Both speak of the importance of getting one's footing, of knowing one's history in order to chart and sustain a life course. They're also aesthetically compatible: Both artists use primarily neutral colors, peppered with occasional bits of brightness, and both maintain a formal, considered quality. The labor and thought that went into each piece, and into the overarching themes between them, rings clear. These artists have chosen different paths to making their marks on the world. Bourdette has successfully completed several public art projects and is currently working with ZGF Architects on the design of the airport MAX line. (The canopies at each stop are her focus, and she'll also create several works of art for the terminal station.) Susan Harlan is a professor of art at Portland State University, and her aesthetic impact on her students has been obvious since she arrived in Portland from the East Coast about six years ago. But both are united in having chosen to represent some of life's polarities in their art: Bourdette reveals the earthbound crustiness of the potato and the feminine beauty of a Venus poised for flight; Harlan portrays the sectioned-off earth and the expansive sky, one of the last things that Bonnie Bronson saw on her final ascent of Mount Adams.
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