Luke Olsen Photography

Lorna Simpson at Blue Sky Gallery
2017-12-07 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, OR, 97209, United States
As a final exhibition commemorating the Embodied: Asserting Self exhibition series, Blue Sky presents Lorna Simpson: from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer, which includes two major bodies of work by Simpson: Wigs (1994) and Details (1996). Wigs is a collection of twenty-one lithographs depicting hair pieces and seventeen corresponding texts printed on felt. The images and texts emphasize the significance of hair in relation to dominant beauty standards and focus on a wide range of styles, including Afros, braided hair, blond locks, and doll wigs. Details consists of twenty-one photogravures accompanied by silkscreened captions. The imagery of the photogravures comes from the artist’s collection of family photos that she has edited and tightly cropped to focus on gestures and hands, while the cryptic text creates a fragmentary but open-ended narrative. In both works, Simpson references the body without including it, or leaves out defining facial features to preserve her subjects’ anonymity, inviting viewers to place themselves or imagine others within these visual spaces.

Terry K. Thompson at Augen Gallery
2017-12-07 17:00 - 20:00 | Augen Gallery, 716 NW Davis St., Portland, OR, 97209, United States
Augen is pleased to present its second solo exhibition of photographs by Terry K. Thompson with this broad 50-year retrospective of his life’s work, titled “Entanglement – Photographic Works 1967-2017.” Thompson began early on as a painter and “literature sponge,” as he puts it, before settling on the camera and the particular aesthetics of photography as his medium of choice. He began his formal photo training in the Navy in 1968 under Edward Steichen’s extensive program, and continued on at the New York at the School of Visual Arts in the 1970s, where his teachers included Diane Arbus, Duane Michaels, Lisette Model, Gary Winogrand, and Arbus’s assistant, Tad Yamashiro among others. Thompson credits Yamashiro’s take on image formation and Winogrand’s “outside the frame” usage as being very influential in his own work.
Following New York, Thompson’s graduate school experience at the San Francisco Art Institute introduced him to the insight and perspective of many other established artists, including Linda Conner, Ruth Bernhard, Pirkle Jones, Imogen Cunningham, and Wynn Bullock. Throughout his own work, Thompson exhibits a range of inspiration and of exploration in what he describes as non-verbal poetic form. He cites the example of Entanglement in the Garden as his association with nature, with Eden, and artistic representations of the past all intersecting in something of a revisionist work. The non-verbal poetics of Thompson’s imagery is underscored by the seductive physical qualities of varied photographic mediums that he skillfully employs. The exhibition will include vintage gelatin silver prints, unique platinum and gum bichromate combination prints, and vintage platinotypes, with 99% platinum and a “smidge” of gold or iridium.
Thompson was awarded a Career Opportunity Grant from both the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation in support of this retrospective exhibition. After studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Thompson completed his M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has had numerous solo exhibitions of his work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland, and has been included in group exhibitions in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, and abroad in England, Scotland, Japan and Switzerland.Thompson will be present at the gallery’s First Wednesday Preview and First Thursday openings and he will give an artist talk on Saturday, December 9, at noon. An exhibition catalog will be available for purchase at the gallery.

Blue Moon Camera Customer Show 2017
2017-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Blue Moon Camera and Machine, 8417 N Lombard St, Portland, OR, 97203, United States
Blue Moon Camera and Machine celebrates our sixteenth anniversary with a presentation of our Fifteenth Annual Customer Show. As one of the last optical printing labs in the country, Blue Moon Camera handles film from thousands of photographers around the globe throughout the year. Tens of thousands of images pass through the lab – some destined for the walls of a gallery, others for an esteemed place on the refrigerator.
Regardless of what our customers do with them afterward, each photo that comes through the lab is, at one point or another, held in the hands of a staff member and looked at. We count the prints, check for dust, and make sure that they reach our standards of quality. We also, occasionally, stop. We hold a print in our hands that makes us feel something and we stop. It may be especially creative, it may be a perfect execution of technique, it may be touching, profound, or just plain lovely. When this happens, the staff member brings this stop-inducing photo around to the rest of the staff to share the experience, and, if the majority approves and the photographer gives their blessing, it is selected for the Blue Moon Camera Customer Show.
We’re always excited for this show as it is an opportunity to exhibit the work of our incredibly talented customer-base. It’s also an opportunity for a unique community of creatives to get together and have a fantastic time.
We hope to see you all there, dressed in your finest, ready to get into some shenanigans with the Blue Moon Camera Crew.
Venues:
45th Parallel Wines 8527 N LombardAnna Bannana’s 8716 N LombardLeisure Public House 8002 N LombardThe Fixin’ To 8218 N Lombard Projecting photos one night only during opening reception!

NW Drawers Portfolio Walk & Print Sale
2017-12-02 15:00 - 17:00 | Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, OR, 97209, United States
Join us Saturday, December 2, from 3 – 5pm, for the first Portfolio Walk for the 2017 Pacific NW Viewing Drawers. You will have the chance to meet photographers from the Drawers, talk about the work, and perhaps buy an original print. There will be two shifts of artists presenting: 3 – 4 pm, and 4 – 5pm. Currently, we have more than 20 artists signed up to participate, and more to come! We will send a final schedule just before the event. For a complete list of 2017 Drawers artists see here:
http://www.blueskygallery.org/exhibitions/nw-drawers/.
Stay for both rounds — enjoy a glass of wine or beer while you mingle with the artists! Wine generously sponsored by Pike Road Wines, and beer sponsored by Ninkasi Brewing.

Portland Photographers Forum Annual Photo Sale
2017-12-02 10:00 - 17:00 | Multnomah Arts Center, 7688 SW Capitol Highway, Portland, OR, 97219, United States
Portland Photographers Forum (www.portlandphotoforum.com) will be having their annual photo sale on Dec 2nd. at the Multnomah Arts Center (http://www.multnomahartscenter.org/) from 10am to 5pm. There will be silver gelatin, platinum/palladium, gold leaf and digital prints. This would be a good place to get a quality photo for that special someone.

Ashley Innis at Pushdot Gallery
2017-12-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Pushdot Studio, 2505 SE 11th Avenue, Portland, OR, 97202, United States
Paranthetics is a study of light, color, and motion; it is a visualization of their relationship. Images are taken with a lensless camera which record light refracted between a specific point and the camera itself and this light takes the form of color and shape. The outcome shows a difference between what is seen and what is physically there. Seemingly, there is a reality and another reality. Our muscle memory, our eyes, our emotions and general “understanding” of the world fills in any void for us. Meditating on that idea, I created neon and placed it back into the image, back into the scene. The neon is what my muscle memory, my eyes, emotions, and my general “understanding of the world fills in the space between these two points.
Ashley has been photographing since childhood and pairing photography and neon for 7 years. Her work has been displayed at Gallery 12 x16, Gallery 511, Ninkasi Gallery, Dot Dotson’s Gallery and has been featured in B & W Magazine from receiving a Merit Award from the publication. Innis achieved her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2016 and currently resides in Portland with her wolf.
Her work can be seen at: ashleyinnis.com
