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The April exhibit at the Hoffman Center Gallery features sculpture and a variety of photographers, opens on Thursday April 4th, with an artists reception on Saturday April 6th.
Stan Peterson has been exhibiting his carved and painted figures since 1981 when William Jamison gave him his first solo show in what was to be the Pearl District in Portland. Since then, his work has been exhibited and collected nationally. He carves basswood with hand tools and uses a variety of colorants for finishing. The only power tool used is a bandsaw, with the remaining cutoffs often becoming handheld “rescue dogs.” Peterson divides his time between New Mexico and Oregon for both photo shoots and carving. He does memory paintings in gouache of sights both real and slightly surreal. From these, he constructs and carves wood sculptures as wall tableau or as narrative figures standing without backgrounds.
The accompanying group photography show will feature three artists: Melinda Hurst Frye, Brian Padian, and Megan Hatch.
Melinda Hurst Frye photographically celebrates the ecology of the forest floor with the goals of providing visual evidence of the cycles, bearing witness to the understory, and bridging the poetry of art with biological sciences. To intentionally slow down her own seeing, Hurst Frye often works with a flatbed scanner as a camera which also allows for space and time to connect with the ecology of her surroundings. Hurst Frye’s work has been featured in publications for both art and science, gallery and museum exhibitions, and a variety of collections. Hurst Frye holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, in Savannah, Georgia, and lives with her family adjacent to an urban forest in Washington State.
Brian Padian is a narrative filmmaker by training, and somewhat new to photography, but he is drawn gravitationally to the immediacy of still images, to the worlds and possibilities that can exist in their boundaries. Padian’s films and screenplays typically feature individuals facing forces beyond their agency or struggling to find the right place in the world, often observing or fighting malevolence in variable forms. This vantage has also informed how he pursues mood and tone in his images, some of which can reassure and provoke the viewer all at once. Based in Portland, Padian visits the Oregon Coast frequently with his family.
Megan Hatch is a creator and curator with a Studio Art degree from Carleton College, living in Portland. Her experiences of growing up rural, working class, and queer inform her work. Her photography has been exhibited internationally and is in collections both private and public. She was a 2022 Critical Mass Finalist, and a 2023 recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award. The images in this exhibit are from her body of work entitled “yes-and.” The images are each bound together by a thin golden line as if by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. They become a series of vessels to hold our hurt, and our hope. There is healing to be found in holding multiple truths in our awareness at the same time, in acknowledging the fullness of the moment, and of each other. By doing so, we get to practice wholeness. There is no way to get to where we want to go without practice.
We invite you to visit the Hoffman gallery April 4-27, Thursdays through Sundays, from 12-5 pm. An artists’ reception will be held 3-5 pm on Saturday, April 6 during which the artists will speak about their work and answer questions. The not-for-profit Hoffman Center for the Arts is located at 594 Laneda Avenue, Manzanita, Oregon. https://hoffmanarts.org/
