Bruce Conkle follows a Northwest tradition of organic, handcrafted artwork infused with environmental concern. Yet instead of gloomy defeatism, political anger or tie-dyed triteness that can often plague eco-conscious art, Conkle's "Friendlier Fire" show at Rocksbox is, like much of his past work, imparted with a refreshingly playful sense of optimism.
As the title indicates, many works use fire as motif. And at this multi-story gallery Conkle has enough space to create atmospheric settings that bring out the naturally engrossing act of fire burning. In an upstairs installation called "T.G.I. Doomsday," for example, Conkle projects onto the wall a line drawing of a fireplace in the Oval Office. Between the projector and the screen, the artist suspended from the ceiling a group of stones from which, with the help of a small propane tank attached underneath, a real flame burns. The fire's quivering shadow fits neatly within the drawn fireplace for an act of mixed-media shadow puppetry. The flames give one the feeling of being magically transmogrified into the center of power.
In an installation appropriately called "The Cup Room," a basement space houses scores of disposable white cups stacked sculpturally into ceiling-high columns; other cups were drawn on. Like Tara Donovan and other artists working with disposable consumer or industrial materials, he succeeds (albeit on a humbler scale) in drawing life from the mundane.
Or, if you connect the stacked cups to Conkle's interest in fire, the purpose seems to explore the transformation that all matter, be it human-made or organic, ultimately undergoes. In longer time frames, creatures are born, live and die or a physical object is produced, used and recycled. Fire, on the other hand, transforms in a dramatic, searing-hot instant. As such, as Conkle reminds us, it also has long been a symbol of ritual and renewal, light and warmth.
Exhibited previously at the now-defunct Haze Gallery in Portland and the Art Gym at Marylhurst University, as well as spaces in Brooklyn and Reykjavik, Iceland, Conkle repeats in many drawings a hybrid snowman-tree figure with branches and barklike arms and skin and a bulbous body. Although cute enough with a touch of the snowman's fleetingness, the numerous drawings seem like only modest additions to a varied, ambitious set of works in various media. Also less refined are 26 small blobby sculptures displayed together on an old coffee table. Meant to evoke flames, they resemble the resulting ashes.
Much better are Conkle's colorful, graphic novel-like drawings, including "A New Beginning" and "Rainbow Puff Happy Tube," with fire engulfing natural objects such as a log, or haloed surreally in rainbows. Like Washington artist Dan Attoe, a finalist at the Portland Art Museum's Contemporary Northwest Art Awards earlier this year, Conkle finds in forests and natural settings a dichotomous, uneasy but gripping blend of beauty and death, ugliness and inspiration, home to earthy conceptual fairy tales without guaranteed happy endings.
Rocksbox, 6540 N. Interstate Ave. Hours: Noon-6 Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment. Info: www.rocksboxfineart.com. Closes Oct. 26.
Embroidered Homeless Signs
"Kindness ... try it," reads one of many discarded cardboard panhandler signs in artist Marc Dombrosky's exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. "I'll bet you'll like it!" it continues.
The many hand-written signs Dombrosky collected for this exhibit feel exceptionally compelling. But the artist's next move feels largely unnecessary.
After collecting handwritten signs discarded by the homeless and others reduced to begging publicly for help, Dombrosky then stitched with thread over the Magic-Marker text of the signs. When the works are viewed from the front, the stitching is subtle enough to scarcely be noticed. But looking at the back of the signs (which are presented in differently sized Plexiglas boxes that subtly resemble a cityscape), one can see the embroidery marks more clearly.
Having the signs under glass, removed from both the people and the context in which they were originally used, gives them a profound and sobering sense of loss and mystery. Where are the people who scrawled these pleas for help and held them beside freeway off-ramps and downtown corners?
At the same time, Dombrosky's stitching is the least interesting part of the exhibit. It's a personal connection between the artist and the makers of the signs, admittedly, yet it interferes with their integrity as objects. It might have been enough to just present the signs unaltered. Maybe in this case, though, the process of literal and figurative connection through the stitching is as important as the product.
Portland Art Museum, 1219 S.W. Park Ave. Information: www.pam.org. Closes: Oct. 26.
-- Brian Libby