Fontanelle Gallery presents a collaborative installation of new sculpture, collage, and works on paper by Midori Hirose and Joshua Orion Kermiet.
For this exhibition, Midori Hirose and Joshua Orion Kermiet create a unique gallery environment based around formal ideas of repetition, intuitive pattern, and tactile shape making. In the work of Midori Hirose, pattern and chaos intersect in a series of vibrant geometric gouache paintings and plaster objects. In the work of Joshua Orion Kermiet, classic ideas of pattern are deconstructed through a variety of techniques including silkscreen, marbling, and collage on both two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms.
At the center of the exhibition, a sculptural installation evokes a scientific menagerie of planets, cellular structures, and cosmic space debris. There is a certain Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, where negative space is echoed by its three-dimensional partner. Positives and negatives, alongside interdependent structures of plaster bricks and chains, illustrate the relativity of joining these divisive elements. The two artists use colors, shapes, pattern, and texture that flow together seamlessly, like pieces of a puzzle that explain the building blocks of anatomy and the universe.
Midori Hirose was born in Hood River, OR and studied sculpture at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Hirose has participated in group exhibitions at PDX Contemporary, the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, and the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art Time Based Art Festival. Joshua Orion Kermiet was born in Lansing, MI and studied painting and printmaking at Michigan State University. Kermiet has exhibited around Portland at Valentine’s, the Take It Eazy Animation Fest, and most recently with E*Rock and Sumi Ink Club at Stumptown. Both artists live and work in Portland, OR.
New work by Midori Hirose and Josh Kermiet will be on view at Fontanelle Gallery, 205 SW Pine Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue) through August 1, 2009. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 12-6pm and by appointment.
