Jenene Nagy solos at Portland Art Museum
PORTLAND, Ore. — Opening February 16, APEX: Jenene Nagy is the fifth installation in the Portland Art Museum’s series dedicated to exhibiting and celebrating contemporary art of the region. The latest APEX exhibition features a site-specific installation by emerging Portland artist Jenene Nagy. On exhibition February 16 – June 22, 2008.
For the last year, Nagy has questioned the need to invent idealized spaces with site-specific installations that blur the boundaries between built and natural environments. Composed with standard construction materials such as drywall, candy-colored latex house paint, wood two-by-fours, and shelf paper, Nagy’s work references manufactured and organic worlds. Residing somewhere between painting and sculpture, her imaginative landscapes flow from gallery walls and fracture into space. “With their clear architectural roots and abstracted organic gestures, Nagy’s playful, yet subversive, faceted installations ask viewers to question their perception of interior and exterior worlds,” said Jennifer A. Gately, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art.
Nagy’s influences include the idealized natural world of Japanese Gardens, ubiquitous pre-fab American subdivision architecture, advertising billboards, and the design and role of stage props in theatrical productions. This is her first solo museum exhibition.
About Jenene Nagy
Jenene Nagy received a BFA from the University of Arizona, Tucson in 1998, and a MFA from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 2004. Her work has been exhibited locally at Linfield College’s Miller Fine Arts Center, New American Art Union, the Portland Building, and PDX Contemporary Art’s Window Project. She has also been included in exhibitions at Dinnerware Contemporary Arts in Tucson, the Brewery Project in Los Angeles, and Ohio State University at Marion. Nagy currently teaches at Clark College in Vancouver, Wash., and is the co-founder of Portland’s TILT Gallery and Project Space.
About APEX
This dynamic series of exhibitions embraces emerging and established artists living in the Northwest. Developed and curated by Jennifer A. Gately, Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art, APEX presents contemporary art in an experimental lab-like setting on the top floor of the Museum’s Center for Northwest Art. Exhibitions range in intentions and mediums from painting, drawing, and sculpture to photography, video, installation, and sound. Supported in part by the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Endowments for Northwest Art, the APEX series continues the Museum’s 115-year commitment to collecting, exhibiting, and celebrating the art of the region.
About the Portland Art Museum
The seventh oldest museum in the United States and the oldest on the West Coast, the Portland Art Museum is internationally recognized for its permanent collection and ambitious special exhibitions drawn from the Museum’s holdings and the world’s finest public and private collections. The Museum’s collection of 42,000 objects, displayed in 112,000 square feet of galleries, reflects the history of art from ancient times to today. The collection is distinguished for its holdings of arts of the native peoples of North America, English silver, and the graphic arts. An active collecting institution, dedicated to preserving great art for the enrichment of future generations, the Museum devotes 90 percent of its galleries to its permanent collection. The Museum’s campus of landmark buildings, a cornerstone of Portland’s cultural district, includes the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, the Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, the Schnitzer Center for Northwest Art, the Northwest Film Center, and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Center for Native American Art. With a membership of more than 23,000 households and serving more than 350,000 visitors annually, the Museum is a premier venue for education in the visual arts. For information on exhibitions and programs, call 503.226.2811 or visit portlandartmuseum.org.