October 6 – One Night Only
Reception: Thursday October 6, 2011 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Nisus Gallery: 328 NW Broadway #117 (at Flanders), Portland, OR

ni·sus
–noun, plural -sus. 
an effort or striving toward a particular goal or attainment; impulse.

Dear Nisus Patrons,

This is the last show at Nisus Gallery. The show features select works from past exhibitions that represent the variety of mediums and styles seen at Nisus.

Nisus is closing for a simple reason; I am moving onto the Board of Directors at Disjecta Interdisciplinary Arts Center. Though I would love to do it all, the demands of being on the board, my regular job as GM of Good Sport Promotion, and the other various projects I work on make that impossible.

There are many people to thank. Brian Wilson, Bryan Suereth, Liz Lamb, Beth Gates, Josh Smith, and Jenene Nagy for helping me get started. Co-curators Andrea “Ray” Boyle (“Over Water”), Carla Schultz (“Meat”), the Center for Cartoon Studies (“Paneled”), Kate Rosenheim (“You’re Not Invited”), Alison Reilly (“You’re Not Invited”) and Toni Tabor-Roberts (director Small Space, Big Stories) for their excellent work.

Many thanks to the 60 artists who exhibited work here. 60 different artists! It was great to work with you. Thank you, you remain at the core of it all.

Special thanks to Raina Lawler for putting up with it all.

Finally, thanks to you, everyone who came to the gallery. Keep supporting the artists and art. This final show is dedicated to you.

Sincerely,

Brad Nelson
Creative Director

Come and hang out with
THE RELATIVES
Scott Engdahl, Adrienne Flagg & Matt Tabora-Roberts
directed by Toni Tabora-Roberts

The Relatives experiment with improvisational theater,
exploring place, constraints, structures and relationships
in an intimate setting.

Date: Thursday, October 20, 2011
Time: 8:00 p.m. with doors at 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $5, limited seating on first come first served basis
BYOB

Come and hang out with
THE RELATIVES
Scott Engdahl, Adrienne Flagg & Matt Tabora-Roberts
directed by Toni Tabora-Roberts

The Relatives experiment with improvisational theater,
exploring place, constraints, structures and relationships
in an intimate setting.

Date: Thursday, September 15, 2011
Time: 8:00 p.m. with doors at 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $5, limited seating on first come first served basis
BYOB

Blake Shell via CC Camera

Jeff Sheridan

Elisabeth Horan via cc camera

You’re Not Invited Main Page

September 1 – October 1, 2011
Gallery Hours: Saturdays from 12:00 – 5:00 pm and by appointment
Opening Reception: Thursday September 1, 2011 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Nisus Gallery: 328 NW Broadway #117 (at Flanders), Portland, OR

Nisus Gallery, Sojourn Art Spaces, and Alison Reilly are proud to present You’re Not Invited, the biggest art event of 2011 (at least at Nisus Gallery). You’re Not Invited is a collaborative exhibition of regional and national artists who were asked to explore the theme of voyeurism in their own artistic practice. The exhibition consists of both a curated visual arts exhibition and seven performance pieces. Artists submitted work that ranges from projected forms of the female body transformed into a still life to butoh inspired dance that exploits the desire to be watched. Come embrace your inherit voyeuristic nature!

Katarina Riesing

Download a PDF of the complete program.

Visual artists featured in You’re Not Invited:

• Blake Shell
  Click for artist info

  Statement: I am currently working with text and images from film websites and online movie watching, exploring text created by aggregators, computer software programs that aggregate specific types of information from multiple online sources. I’m interested in how this information is accurate, or not, and how these words can be used to describe other aspects of our lives. I am also interested in the glitches that happen online, the accidental moments that are rarely recorded. I delve into the mysteries and subtleties that are found in the world today, even within the machine.

  Blake Shell is a digital artist, an art educator, and a contemporary art curator.  She received a Bachelor of Art from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee in 2001 and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Savannah College of Art and Design in 2003. Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt, Germany as well as alongside video artists Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, and William Wegman. Shell is currently the Archer Gallery Director at Clark College.

• Alex Dolan
• Katarina Riesing
  Click for artist info

  Still Life is a video work concerning gaze and the history of painting.  In it the artist positions herself as a subject (object) of “male gaze”, taking generic positions from classic paintings of nudes.  The artist then begins to paint away her body, revealing a classic still life behind her, calling into question the figure as object. 

   

   Katarina Riesing is a native of Tennessee. She has her BA in painting from Smith College in Massachusetts and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  She is currently participating in an artist residency in Brooklyn, NY, working with video, photography, drawing, and painting and exploring new age philosophies.  Her work can be found at www.katarinariesing.com and www.katarinariesing.tumblr.com.

• Jake Richardson
  Click for artist info

  Statement.

  Society focuses on the acts and processes of consumption and destruction. We have created a world of modern entertainment obsessed with watching the struggles and accomplishments of “real” people from afar. In living vicariously through these forms of entertainment, we have created a world of mass social distraction and distortion. I create my art to return the focus to the real person’s struggle: in the end, everyone is trying to escape, but no one can see what’s holding them back.

  These one-of-a-kind Cyanotype prints are created with a hands on photographic printing process by brushing on light sensitive ink onto paper. This ink is exposed with UV light and then rinsed, leaving behind a photographic image.

  Jake Richardson is a freelance graphic artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. Be it art exhibitions or corporate work, Richardson creates dynamic images focusing on geometry and vivid color. Jake received his BFA in visual communication with a minor in photography from Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he has taught Typography II as an adjunct professor. As an experienced screen printer and print artist, Jake finds himself designing and creating anything from a limited run T-shirt or poster design, to an identity system and collateral for a diverse clientele. His photography ranges from fashion and product photography to one-of-a-kind alternative printing processes.

• Jeff Sheridan
  Click for artist info

  Artist Statement

  The outer-space presented to us in textbooks isn’t real. Printed on paper. Learning about the composition of the sun from 8th grade textbooks consists of a three-dimensional pie slice being taken out of our star, classifying something we’ve never seen as the corona, core, and so on. Peering into something we can’t see. We can assume something has a specific composition, but in this case, the act of imagining brings a certain truth to the image. Of course the sun has a core.The act of categorizing and cutting and viewing and cutting and viewing is how we observe. It’s the scientific process. But it’s an extension of human curiosity.

  In reality, what we actually know from experience is actually quite small. I don’t really know what happened before I was born because I wasn’t there. It could all be a hoax. I haven’t been to space, or Iraq, or ancient Egypt, so therefor I have to rely on a certain amount of trust in my fellow man. But the only way to do that is to peel back the layers of my own brain, my own soul, my own sun, and observe for myself. I am a small planet orbiting around a larger energy source, which is also a part of myself. These models all, in the end, illustrate a way of looking at the universe, inside of your head and outside of our earth. So I have to trust that my fellow man is doing the same. It’s hard. 

  As the deep-space probe, Voyager 1, was leaving our solar system on February 14, 1990, engineers turned its cameras back around and pointed it back at earth. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away from earth, carrying with it a phonograph record- a 12 inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on our home planet. To provide a kind of time-capsule for extraterrestrials. Tangents aside, the cameras of Voyager 1 were turned back to earth, depicting the farthest photo of earth ever taken. A tiny blue dot taking up .12 pixels. This is arguably one of the most interesting human achievements in existence- playing “Peeping Tom” from across the solar system.

• Jamie Waelchi
  Click for artist info

  Statement: In the Bathe project, sixteen baths were recorded on subsequent evenings and composited together as transparent layers of video. In this way, the blending of footage creates a meditation on the isolated rituals of contemporary life. 

• Elisabeth Horan
  Click for artist info

  Elisabeth Horan received her Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of South Florida.

   She currently enjoys filtering analog imagery into sardonic, sensual, and sometimes violent visual statements on a variety of human-issues.  Images of the body are the vehicle of her work; as commentary on the absurdity of life, of the frustration of forever being tied to a dying animal.  Despite this morbidity, above all else, the artist believes in silliness.  Her images float in seas of nothingness, forcing the viewer to dwell only upon the symbolic offering, a puzzle of pieced-together imagery.  Each title serves a hint to solving the riddle of her work.

   

Performers featured in You’re Not Invited:

• The Working Theatre Collective
  Click for artist info

  (un)watched

  exploring private moments made public
  Performers: Noelle Eaton and Alexandra Leigh Ramirez
  Directed by Ashley Hollingshead

   

  Statement:The Working Theatre Collective is an ensemble based company that is dedicated to producing new works and other theatre worth the effort.  We focus on aggressively artistic, DIY productions in unexpected spaces.  We are interested in creating theatre that is working to establish a home in the hearts of the artist and the audience. Through working to produce art we find the heart of living!

  
  

  Ashley Hollingshead is the co-founder of the working theatre collective.  she serves as a director/designer/collaborator, as well as doer of all things admin.  for the WTC ashley has directed the peter pan project, zero divided by zero, blank not blank, 20 erotic shorts, medea and jason: a love story that ends badly, 26 ways i love you, and a story that ends and begins with a dream.  she has designed at least one element of every single production that the WTC has created (minus NORTH! and Bike Noir).  outside of her work with the WTC, ashley has worked with foolsFURY (san francisco) and Rorschach Theatre (washington dc).
  

  Noelle Eaton is a Portland actress and member of the working theater collective.  Noelle receieved her undergraduate degree in theater performance from PSU where she studied under Devon Allen and Michael O’Connell.  Credits with The Working Theatre Collective include Dima in A Story that Begins and Ends with a Dream, Pamela in John Lennon’s Gargoyle and an ensemble member in 20 Erotic Shorts,NORTH! Saddle up and ride, and Bike Noir.  Other favorite Portland credits include Leonora in Our Shoes are Red/The Performance Lab’s Northwest premeier of Ursula, Claire in The Maids, Chrysothemis in Electra, Ensemble member in 4:48 Psycosis, Evelyn in The Shape of Things, and Ellen in Vinegar Tom.

  Alexandra Leigh Ramirez is a barista by day and a theatre do-er by night

• Keyon Gaskin
  Click for artist info

  Fluorescent Lights
  Created & Performed by Keyon Gaskin

  Statement: Keyon’s performance pieces ask questions without seeking answers. his interest in curiosity and exploration, with a healthy distaste for definition and fact, push keyon to use a variety of movement and theatre styles, as well as what naturally comes from his being to cultivate a moment with audiences/voyeurs which is engaging, affecting, and stimulating all the while accessible….

  Fluorescent Lights questions societal pressures effect on self examination (among other things);  how do we prepare ourselves to be around others? why do we need to “get ready to go out”? how different do we behave when we’re alone?  why? if someone were watching me right now would they think i was crazy?  why do i say i don’t care what people think and then take forever getting ready? why do i hate artist statements so? if there were less judgment would we feel more free? what  creates judgment? what will it be like being physically separate from the audience?  why does that make me anxious? why does anything? what is this piece about? what does that matter? why do we pretend to have answers? why do we feel such a need to define? have people created an inhumane way of being for themselves and other beings?

• Nathalie Weinstein
  Click for artist info

  A Reading by Nathalie Weinstein, performed by Brenan Dwyer

  Nathalie Weinstein is the editor of arts and entertainment website PDX Pipeline, a freelance writer, and also assists with the popular storytelling series Back Fence PDX. After graduating from Oregon State University with a BA in English, she was surprised to find herself employed by The Daily Journal of Commerce for three years as a news reporter.

  Brenan Dwyer is a theatre artist from Portland, Oregon. Her performing interests include movement theatre and dance, Shakespeare, and well-written contemporary plays. She also writes plays and hopes to choreograph for the theatre. Her favorite roles have been playing The Young Wife in La Ronde at Shakespeare Santa Cruz and Jackie Kennedy in The Cuban Missile Tango at Imago Theatre. She enjoys the outdoors, cats, olives, red wine and novels. She graduated from Occidental College with a B.A. with Honors in Theatre, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

  brenandwyer.com

• Atlas Alaska
  Click for artist info

  Biography: Alaska born lover of absurdity.

   Statement: I appreciate the beauty in everyday actions and candid moments.  Being an avid window-gazer and lover of women, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window struck a special chord for me.  As a Gender Studies student, I struggled with my love of voyeurism and fascination of the theories surrounding male gaze.  Atlas Alaska was born out collection of sexy, subtle movements and mannerisms I have observed in the beautiful women of my life.  She lets me toy with the realm that lies between lovely and horrible, purposeful and unwitting.  Rejoice in her appealing and calculated non-performance.

• L + D
  Click for artist info

  If You Want to Stand in the Window, You Had Better Throw Up Your Food

  Created & Performed by Lillian Rossetti and David Krom

   

  Statement: This is a performance piece by L+D. We are not spoil sports. Much of the work, U r gonna hav ta do fer URself.

   

  Horses have been used by humans to do human work for a long long time. Think about cars, like a long time ago, they were horses. Remember?

   

  Mall culture and couture and beautiful fabricated-synthetic bodies and “I have this and you don’t” and “shake those d-cups for daddy, bitch!” and team high-class high-class fancy fancy and sparkly beautiful consumer goods they make me a Real Boy. 

   

  These things we all have R like totes real and totes alive. They matter, like a lot. 

   

  Capital holding big shots, thats who we are. We won the game and wowed the crowed. (Impressive!) This here is just the after party. Look at all the blow and all the tits. Look at all those dilapidated sad eyes. Look at how much fun we are actually having here, right now.YES!

  _______________

  Cue the horses-

   

  Lillian Rossetti is a Portland based dancer/performance artist.  Currently training in butoh, she has worked with Mizu Desierto Water In the Desert/Local Culture Project and Imago Theatre, and is currently working on a production entitled “Gender Fantasy” with local performance artist Kajanne Pepper. She also presents solo work and original street performance/artistic terrorism. 

   

  David Krom is a Portland based performer (Dance, Theatre, and Voice) who works in/from a variety of styles, formats, and platforms. He was last seen performing as a part of Portland Center Stage’s JAW festival with Mizu Desierto and the “Local Culture Project”, and he is looking forward to this years Time Based Art (TBA) festival where he will be performing with Zoe|Juniper in their original dance installation project, “a crack in everything”. As a performance maker with a background in theatre, he is excited by the openness and possibility FindaBle in doING/making multidisciplinary Performance. He will soon be moving to Los Angeles California in order to become a Celebrity.

• The Relatives
• Nathan H.G.
  Click for artist info

  Performed by Nathan H.G. and Zoee Garza

  Statement: In the age of the Internet and Reality TV, voyeurism has become an acceptable norm and no longer a Peeping Tom taboo. Social Networking is a way of peering into to a person’s life without ever having personal contact with them. You can fantasize you truly know that person and have a relationship with them outside your normal reality and they would be none the wiser. One could also collect “Friends” using a false identity to access their innermost thoughts and photos (or at least those they care to share with cyberspace). These facts make it easy to imagine someone is watching you.

  Nathan H.G. is a movement performance artist and Butoh dancer. He is currently in rehearsals for Imago Theatre’s Zugzwang and Megan Skye Hale’s masked theatre production of the Seven Swan Brothers along with other projects. Nathan performs with Imago Theatre, The Wonderlust Circus, Bogville, Socitas Insomnia, and Mizu Desierto Butoh Theatre.

  Zoee Garza is an actor and performance artist in Portland, Ore.  Her past credits include Imago Theater’s Stage Left Lost, Fefu and Her Friends directed by Devon Allen and The Maids  directed by Mark Hayes. She recently formed and began performing in the burlesque duo Booze L’Rouge.

You’re Not Invited opening reception is September 1st from 6:00pm-9:00pm, featuring seven live performances. Live performances begin at 7pm. The curated exhibition runs through the 1^st of October.

Elisabeth Horan

Blake Shell

Nisus Gallery is a contemporary arts gallery directed by Brad Nelson featuring emerging and career artists. The gallery opened in August 2010 in the Everett Station Lofts.

Sojourn Art Spaces is a curatorial collaboration founded in August 2010 by Katherine Rosenheim and Alexandra Smith. SAS focuses on the transformative properties of site-specific installations in run down or abandoned buildings in Northeast Portland. For more information on upcoming shows please visit their website at sojournartspaces.wordpress.com.

Alison Reilly is a curator and performance artist. In August 2011, she and collaborator Ashley Chambers presented Bruss, a performance of the relationship between storytelling and day-to-day reality. She graduated in 2009 from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in Art History.

Visual artists featured in You’re Not Invited:

• Blake Shell
• Alex Dolan
• Katarina Riesing
• Daniel Scotti
• Jake Richardson
• Jeff Sheridan
• Jamie Waelchi
• Elisabeth Horan

Performers featured in You’re Not Invited:

• The Working Theatre Collective
• Keyon Gaskin
• Nathalie Weinstein
• Atlas Alaska
• L + D
• The Relatives
• Nathan H.G.

You’re Not Invited opening reception is September 1st from 6:00pm-9:00pm, featuring seven live performances. Live performances begin at 7pm. The curated exhibition runs through the 1^st of October.

Come and hang out with
THE RELATIVES
Scott Engdahl, Adrienne Flagg & Matt Tabora-Roberts
directed by Toni Tabora-Roberts

The Relatives experiment with improvisational theater,
exploring place, constraints, structures and relationships
in an intimate setting.

Date: Thursday, August 18, 2011
Time: 8:00 p.m. with doors at 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $5, limited seating on first come first served basis
BYOB

If you are interested in ordering prints, please either sign up for the enewsletter or email us and you will be added to the list to be notified in November.

Date: July 2011

Website: nickbaxter.com

About: Nick Baxter is an internationally renowned artist and tattoo artist. His creative self-expression has developed into other fine art mediums such as painting, mixed media collage, and photography. Baxter has appeared at COSM (NYC), M Modern Gallery (Palm Springs), and several others. Most recently, he wrote Sharp Focus in Realism. He currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Date: June 2011

About: Nancy Demarco was formally educated in linguistics in New York (MA-Stony Brook Univ.), studied studio art in San Diego through the community colleges and various artists’ guilds, and has been a Portland resident since 2007.