The bulk of the presentation for the jury-selected paintings in A6’s “Going By Bike” are three paintings hung in A6’s front corridor. The first is from Jane Quale; a calm and demurely beautiful painting, a tomato-red background with the black silhouette of the back half of a bike covering the painting’s lower quarter. Adjacent to that painting is “Desert Cycle,” from Robyn Cochran-Raglan, a watercolor that picks up the smooth motion of road cycling, uneven horizontal lines stripe pink, tan, and blue across the painting with a hunched-over cyclist embedded into the movement. And, finally, Adell Shetterly’s painting also cleverly captures, like lightning in a bottle, the sense of buzzing motion from bike racing. Three repeated rectangle block prints of reverse image bike races are stamped across the piece’s bottom half; the upper half is covered in a calm periwinkle blue and adored with a dozen gray cranks. It is a picture that captures both the human spirit moving forward, set against the mechanical design of bicycles.
Although the front area of the gallery space is dedicated to this show, “Going by Bike,” it is the other current exhibition which overwhelms: 15 colorful and complex prints from Yuji Hiratsuka. A solo exhibit from the Oregon State faculty member, the paintings each are busy but strong and powerful images; each painting is centered and largely consumed by a portrait of a person. Not finely detailed but broad and distorted strokes set against ribbons of color creates a beautiful image, but also an unsettled sense of emotion and motion.
At 6 pm on Tuesday, July 29, Hiratsuka will host an art talk about his work, and during the week July 27-31 will host a weeklong class in traditional Japanese woodcut. Contact A6 at (541) 330-8759 to register for the class.
A6
9:30 am–7 pm, Monday-Friday
10 am–6 pm, Saturday
Noon–5 pm, Sunday
389 SW Scalehouse Ct. Suite 12
This article appears in Jul 15-23, 2015.
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Love ‘Desert Cycle’ by Ribyn Cochran-Ragland. You can ‘feel’ the wind whistling through the spokes and ‘smell’ the desert air. Fantastic!
Pardon my type-o I meant Robyn Cochran-Ragland.