ANYA ROBERTS-TONEY // The Echoing Green

On view April 5–May 10, 2025
Opening reception Saturday, April 5 (2–4pm)
Artist talk Saturday, April 26 (11am)

Nationale is pleased to announce the opening of The Echoing Green by Portland-based painter Anya Roberts-Toney. The title of the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery alludes to William Blake’s poem by the same name, which recounts and intertwines memories of the outdoors and youthful exuberance. At the poem’s close, the green has shifted from echoing to darkening as the sun sets—a visceral allusion to the passage of time. The twenty paintings on display in the Front Gallery and Project Room emulate these feelings on mortality and the future, and reference the artist's ongoing inquiry into feminine power, motherhood, and the natural world. Lush blues, purples, and greens give way to Roberts-Toney's distinctive motifs of portals, archways, and pools of water. These repeated images present as opaque and mysterious yet ever-present across the work, marrying the anxiety of the unknown with an enduring sense of perseverance and strength.

The rich pigment emerald green plays a crucial role in the color palette of this exhibition and creates a thoughtful throughline amongst the pieces. While nontraditional as landscapes, these paintings create their own natural world wherein green becomes embodied as a harbinger of vitality. Works such as Hope in the Dark and The Pearl strategically employ light to hint at the possibility of transformation within each painting. A bright orb casts soft shadows across the water’s surface in Midnight Sun, bringing a refuge from the surrounding murky and dark background.  In other instances, light breaks through clouds or serves as a central focal point drawing the viewer in. The presence of fountains serves as an endless source of life, their free-flowing water a symbol of perseverance. In this way, the paintings on display present reverently in the space of the gallery. Hope abounds within The Echoing Green if we so choose to look for it.

Anya Roberts-Toney received her BA in Studio Art from Brown University and her MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Originally from Seattle, WA, she lives and works in Portland, OR, where she is represented by Nationale. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Portland Art Museum and Soho House, has been presented on Platform (a David Zwirner Project), and has been exhibited locally and nationally at locations including Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now Oregon Contemporary), Nationale, Dust to Dust Projects, La Loma Projects, The Portland ‘Pataphysical Society, the Office at Russo Lee, Somos Gallery, and Stephanie Chefas Projects. She is a winner of the Hopper Prize, a recipient of both a Photography Documentation Grant and a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission (with additional funding from the Ford Family Foundation), and a recipient of the Stumptown Artist Fellowship.

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