All eyes on Portland protests have turned the city into an art gallery of commentary, and if the blocks and blocks of boarded windows are her newest creation, the city is a particularly prolific artist.
The serene smolder of the imaginary landscapes of Joan Nelson, displayed last month at Portland gallery Adams and Ollman, has become the city’s sacred stained glass. Never has something so harmonious and holy begged to be plugged in like Nelson’s electric plexiglass paintings. Having previously painted on wood, it’s as if the artist shed surface for shimmer, perhaps next seen on foil as maps and manuscripts to faraway lands. Who among the locked-down and housebound hasn’t evolved into an escapist or a would-be sailor of anywhere but home?
Our current digital home life is a life without landscape and is therefore a life without a place for our authentic selves to roam. In…
