SHIELA LAUFER // Six More Weeks
On view March 10–April 16, 2023
Opening reception Saturday, March 11 (2–4 p.m.)
Nationale is pleased to present Six More Weeks, a solo exhibition of new work by Portland artist Shiela Laufer. In this sprawling collection of paintings, Laufer continues her exploration of motifs inspired by her upbringing in rural Pennsylvania, including traditional decorative wrought-iron and Pennsylvania Dutch “Hex signs”—circular folk art designs commonly painted on the sides of barns. These abstract shapes are filtered through the colors and textures of the countryside—replete with tangled underbrush, rolling farmland, and dappled light—and inscribed on canvases large enough to envelop the viewer in their lush, web-like embrace. With Six More Weeks Laufer offers a shimmering visualization of the potential for new life and regrowth that lies dormant at this time of the year.
Titles like Split Stone and Bluster, Breeze evoke an incantation, or perhaps the words a child might repeat to themselves while wandering through their backyard. Laufer says of these paintings, “I keep going back to the feeling of trying to force one’s way through bramble: stomping, pulling, snapping twisted branches.” Transparent jewel-like colors and dense walls of thorny brush strokes build tension, as the canvas struggles to enclose more pictorial space than it can contain. Spiraling curlicues tremble together like the shadow of a tree in the wind. Six More Weeks builds an oddly picturesque world that the artist describes as “both erratic and quiet… like walking down a path that gradually gets stranger and more wild the deeper in you go.” As the days grow longer and signs of life emerge from the stillness of winter, these dreamlike scenes beckon the return of spring.
Shiela Laufer (b. 1992, Grove City, PA) received a BFA in Printmaking from The Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2014 and lives in Portland, OR. Her work is influenced by folk art and the rural landscape of Pennsylvania where she grew up. Laufer has previously shown at Nationale, Chefas Projects, and the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft.
PRESS & MORE
Things to Do in Portland This Week, Matthew Trueherz & Isabel Lemus Kristensen, Portland Monthly, March 9, 2023
Recommended, EverOut/Portland, March 2023
Critics’ Picks, Art and About PDX, April 2023
IMAGES
To receive an updated checklist of the exhibition, please fill in the form below. Thank you!