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DISJECTA'S PORTLAND2016 READER NOW AVAILABLE IN THE SHOP

Nationale is pleased to now carry Disjecta's The Portland2016 Reader and Catalog, a beautiful publication which is presented in an etched case and features gallery artist Amy Bernstein (in conversation with Emily Bernstein and Julia Calabrese).
Established in 2010, the Portland Biennial is a major survey of Oregon artists who are defining and advancing the state’s contemporary arts landscape. Building upon the success of its predecessors, the Portland2016 Biennial was a two-month celebration of the here and now that showcased 34 artists at 25 partner venues in 13 communities across the state – the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Oregon art ever. It was curated by Michelle Grabner
Artists included: Avantika Bawa, Carla Bengtson, David Bithell, Pat Boas, Mike Bray, Bruce Burris, Julia Calabrese & Emily Bernstein, Cherry & Lucic, David Eckard, Tannaz Farsi, Jack Featherly, Howard Fonda, Julie Green, Midori Hirose, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Colin Kippen, Anya Kivarkis, Michael Lazarus, Charlene Liu, Giles Lyon, Ellen Mcfadden, Whitney Minthorn, Donald Morgan, Brenna Murphy, Julia Oldham, Rebecca Peel, Lisa Radon, Jon Raymond, Jack Ryan & Chi Wang, Heidi Schwegler, Rick Silva, Storm Tharp, Weird Fiction, and Ryan Woodring.

Also available on our WEBSHOP!

PRINT RELEASE THIS WEDNESDAY, MAY 17

Annie McLaughlin, Untitled, 2017, silkscreen print (ed.100), 24 x 18"

Annie McLaughlin, Untitled, 2017, silkscreen print (ed.100), 24 x 18"

Please join us on Wednesday, May 17 (6–7:30 p.m.) for the print release party and closing reception for Annie McLaughlin's solo exhibition, Brushing Out the Brood Mare's Tale. Annie collaborated with Nationale's offshoot project, Le Oui to create a unique, limited edition silkscreen print.
For this piece, we wanted to keep some of the elements from the current series of paintings and also play around with the more abstract images & ideas found in Textures of Paradise, the artist book accompanying the exhibition. As with our other Le Oui releases, 10% of the proceeds from this print will benefit a non-profit organization. Annie has chosen to support the Center for Reproductive Rights. If you can't join us on May 17, you can now pre-order this limited edition print HERE.

The Goddess / The Mother, our special pop-up with designer Jess Beebe of Linea & Rosette is on view April 7–9 & April 15–16 with an opening reception Friday, April 7 from 6 to 8 p.m.

ANNOUNCING LE OUI

Back in early December, gallery artist Carson Ellis approached me to see if we could help her with an idea she had: she had just finished her family's holiday card and thought the design would make an amazing poster. Since the elections, she'd also been wanting to do a benefit for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Putting the two ideas together, together we produced ONWARD, silk-screened locally here in Portland. The first run sold out in just a few days raising $5600.

The experience of producing Onward with Ellis led to many sleepless nights with fast running thoughts about the state of the world; the madness & challenges of running a small art gallery in Portland, OR; and on a more personal level, what I love most doing: working with inspiring artists whose work is not only beautiful but also thought provoking.

And so with the second printing of Carson's Onward, we launched Le Oui, an offshoot of Nationale. The first batch of prints sold out within a few hours on Inauguration Day, but you can sign up to be on the alert list HERE (leoui--001 will always be an open edition so we can raise more funds for the ACLU).

With Le Oui, our goal is to closely collaborate with established and emerging artists to eventually release limited edition silkscreen prints and donate part of the proceeds to organizations fighting for social justice and equality.

CARSON ELLIS BOOK SIGNING NOVEMBER 13!

Please join us on Sunday, November 13 (2—3pm) as we welcome gallery artist Carson Ellis back to Nationale for a special event celebrating the release of her new book, Du Iz Tak? 

Limited quantities available. We recommend you reserve your signed copy now. See you next Sunday!

Praise for Du Iz Tak?

Ellis’s bewitching creation stars a lively company of insects who speak a language unrelated to English, and working out what they are saying is one of the story’s delights...Very gently, Ellis suggests that humans have no idea what wonders are unfolding at their feet—and that what takes place in the lives of insects is not so different from their own. Has there ever been anything quite like it? Ma nazoot. —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Ellis elevates gibberish to an art form with her brilliant account of a few bugs, who discover a green shoot sprouting from the ground...Readers and pre-readers alike will find myriad visual cues in Ellis’ splendid folk-style, gouache-and-ink illustrations that will allow them to draw meaning from the nonsensical dialogue, as well as observe the subtle changing of the seasons. The entire story unfolds on the same small stretch of ground, where each new detail is integral to the scene at hand. Effortlessly working on many levels, Ellis’ newest is outstanding. —Booklist (starred review)

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There’s an elusive yet distinctly joyful quality to Carson Ellis’s picture book that feels like suspended glee, or a laugh caught halfway in the throat. As in her 2015 debut, “Home,” the gouache and ink illustrations in “Du Iz Tak?” are chic and subtly witty. But this time Ms. Carson matches them with dialogue in the enchanting foreign language of the elegantly dressed beetles and insects that live on a small, eventful patch of earth. —The Wall Street Journal

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In a wordless coda of successive double-page spreads we are comforted by the cycle of the seasons. By the final words, “Du iz tak?” we are fluent speakers of Bug. Completely scrivadelly, this is a tour de force of original storytelling. —Horn Book (starred review)

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Carson Ellis has created a fantastic microcosm with her usual grace and inventiveness...I was completely captivated by Ellis’s wonderful creatures, their charming little world and their droll language. —The New York Times Book Review

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High drama ensues in the clean, odd, beautiful pages ahead. A marvel. —Shelf Awareness for Readers

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Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

JON RAYMOND TONIGHT AT PUBLICATION STUDIO

Past Nationale reader, Merchant-in-Residence, and beloved Portland author, Jon Raymond is releasing THE COMMUNITY: Writings About Art In and Around Portland 1997-2016 tonight at Publication Studio. This is a project dear to our hearts as I had a couple great conversations with Jon this past fall about him getting started on this monumental task and Gabi ended up helping him assemble the project. If you've read any of her fantastic artists interviews, you probably want her to write a book of her own next!

CONFESSIONS / JESSICA JACKSON HUTCHINS (now in stock)

Confessions was commissioned as part of Jessica's two-space exhibition of the same name at the lumber room and the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College. It was made like a sculpture, layer by layer, over the months proceeding and during the exhibition. It is partially a documentary of the creation of these two shows, as well as a documentary of its own creation. It is a sheaf of hoarded collage materials. It is a zine, metastasized. It is the stuff in the room.

Designed by Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Gary Robbins, and Heather Watkins, Confessions was printed and bound at Container Corps.

216 pages / 144 x 206 mm / Edition of 450 / Printed offset in full color with various spot colors throughout, smyth sewn softbound in cloth / $ 45

3|3|3: TODD JOHNSON | ELIZABETH MALASKA | STEPHEN SLAPPE

Image: Detail of a debut installation by Stephen Slappe, 2015. OUR PEACE is a 4-channel immersive video environment created from documentary footage captured in Portland, Oregon.

Image: Detail of a debut installation by Stephen Slappe, 2015. OUR PEACE is a 4-channel immersive video environment created from documentary footage captured in Portland, Oregon.

Nationale is pleased to announce that represented artist Elizabeth Malaska is included in 3|3|3, an exhibition curated by Cris Moss at White Box. Please join us this First Thursday, December 3, for the reception.

3|3|3
Todd Johnson | Elizabeth Malaska | Stephen Slappe
December 1 – December 19, 2015
First Thursday Opening Reception, 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

White Box  is pleased to present 3|3|3. This exhibition features painting, video, and photography by Todd Johnson, Elizabeth Malaska, and Stephen Slappe. Each artists’ work occupies one of the three galleries in the White Box. The exhibition runs for three weeks.

Todd Johnson is an experimental and conceptual photographer living and working in Portland, Oregon. His photographic work uses abstract metaphor, social critique, dark humor and personal narrative. Johnson received his MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Todd is the founder and director of Black Box Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions include: The Misadventures of Ansel Adams: Garage Sales, Geotracking and General Tomfoolery at The Art Gym at Marylhurst University; Dangerous Territory at Pacific Northwest College of Art; and Malt Liquor and Cold Cuts at False Front Gallery.

Elizabeth Malaska’s paintings, with their dramatic juxtaposition of subject, material, and technique dispel normative readings, while also warning against the impending apocalypse of global complacency. Coupled with the artificiality of her statuesque female figures and geometric settings, they transition from everyday narratives into urgent allegories. Malaska earned her MFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally at various institutions including Portland’s Nationale, Froelick Gallery, Disjecta, Portland Center Stage, and San Francisco’s California College of the Arts, where she also received her BFA. She was named a finalist for The Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant and the Fine Arts Work Center fellowship in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Malaska is a recent recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund’s Money for Women Grant. Malaska lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where she is represented by Nationale.

Stephen Slappe, an artist based in Portland, Oregon. Utilizing video and subversive installations, Slappe creates work that critiques technology and society’s inherent reliance on it. Viewers become immersed in environments where the parallel lines of reality and perceived social media become blurred. Slappe’s work has exhibited and screened internationally in venues such as Centre Pompidou-Metz, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s TBA Festival, The Horse Hospital (London), The Sarai Media Lab (New Delhi), Consolidated Works (Seattle), Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), and Artists Television Access (San Francisco). His projects have been funded by multiple grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council of Portland and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission. Slappe actively organizes video and film exhibitions including Subduction Zone at The Front (New Orleans) and Out of the Great Northwest at The Horse Hospital (London). His most recent project is an iOS app, titled 8, available on iTunes.

GET YOUR BIDS ON!

So proud of our 8 represented artists (+ Jeffrey Kriksciun) for their generous donations to the upcoming Disjecta Auction happening next Saturday, November 14. Start bidding now via Paddle8 for the pieces featured on the live auction and see you in a couple weeks for the big night...

COLLECT CALL MEN'S MESH SHORTS

Collect Call (AKA Ryan Boyle) low-crotch, men’s mesh shorts are now in the shop throughout the run of Sensitive. Limited availability guys, so hurry in! 

SOFT SERVE UP THROUGH SATURDAY

Kate Towers’ pop up Soft Serve will be up through this Saturday (7/25)—only a few days left to check out these amazing pieces. Also, she’s replenished the rack with some new gems, and is offering all Soft Serve items at a 10% discount! Thanks to our lovely intern Emma Lou for modeling Kate’s rad terrycloth dress!

FREDRIK AVERIN

Loving our selection of Fredrik Averin books currently in the shop. Follow him on Tumblr HERE.

SOFT SERVE RECEPTION LAST NIGHT

Thanks to everyone who showed up last night to celebrate Kate Towers and the new creations she made for our special July pop-up, Soft Serve. We are hoping to replenish the rack by Wednesday, but there’s still a few little gems up for grabs…

TOMORROW EVENING: ILYAS AHMED!

Please join us Thursday, May 14 at 7 p.m. as we celebrate the release of Ilyas Ahmed’s new album, I Am All Your Own

“Ilyas’ music is in service to dream investigation, at once still and impermanent as an August cloud and then sweeping like a strange breeze through your thoughts. “I Am All Your Own” will wrap you in serenity but is aware that any second now you may escape. Music of a sweet morning, and unforgettable.” 
–Thurston Moore

Image Asif Ahmed

SAVE THE DATE: MAY 14 // ILYAS AHMED

During its first six years, Nationale hosted monthly events, from poetry readings to intimate concerts, from serious lectures to silly dance performances. We built a strong community around them and even though we had to slow things down with the arrival of baby Lou, we are back at it this month with a special record release + concert by Nationale alum, Ilyas Ahmed. Please join us on Thursday, May 14 (7 p.m.) as we celebrate the release of I Am All Your Own, his newest album on Immune Recordings.

Ilyas Ahmed’s songs exist in a sublime moment of suspended animation, calmly dwelling in between modes of music making both timeless and contemporary - deeply imbued with stillness and peace. On I Am All Your Own, his first album in three years, Ahmed employs strategies gleaned from experimental and ambient musicians, such as Lawrence English and Fripp & Eno, and applies them to song-based guitar music. Building slowly and purposefully, each individual track adds to the album’s overall, scrupulously-forged contour. His most direct work, Ahmed’s voice is brought to the fore and unobscured. Like the best work of his friend and collaborator Liz Harris (Grouper), as well as classic touchstones such as the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album and David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” Ahmed’s latest is sentimental and emotive, while remaining hushed and understated. I Am All Your Own is a record for late nights and early mornings, those times spent in solitude and reflection.

#PGFBIGSHIRT

A big thank you to everyone who stopped by this past weekend and made #PGFBIGSHIRT, our pop-up with Portland Garment Factory, such a success. It was a real delight to experience how much people LOVE clothes and to watch smart, bold, beautiful women play around in fun clothes made by the brilliant team Britt and Rosemary have built over the years.