TY ENNIS // Innerbloom

On view September 9–October 29, 2023
Opening reception Saturday, September 16 (3–5pm)

Innerbloom is a self portrait of a painter in transition. Portland-based Ty Ennis returns to Nationale after a five year hiatus and discovery period. The works debuted here are reflective and revelatory, inviting the artist back home both into his practice and into himself. Multiple windows, doors, and thresholds are realized in these canvases. These recurring representations stand as starting points, end points, and the wavering, difficult, and beautiful transitions that take place in between. For this reason, some portals may feel premature or less considered, executed by a quicker stroke of the brush. Less developed. In turn others may feel overworked, obfuscated by the layers of several lives on the canvas. However, works that may seem incomplete to an outside eye—like the monochromatic, abstract painting, Rachel—feel perfect to the artist. They tell their story exactly as he would like it to be told, shortcomings and all, while preserving the raw memory from which it was conceived.

What is a Complete painting? And what is Cohesion? These queries permeate this body of work and evidence the artist’s inner dialogues. In various states of consciousness—drunk, sober, grieving, heart-broken, anxious, in love—the rules of creation become malleable in Ennis’ hands. 22nd and Nowhere is the incomplete still life whose very state of transience questions the futility of the future. Bananas serve as another ready motif, nodding to gender and sexuality as well as to markers of time and opportunity. Here the green, unripe fruit is nestled amidst a produce bowl in front of a window with blooming flowers. Borrowing from Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives, the work asks What’s outside the window? and beyond the yellow buds viewers can imagine a new narrative surfacing. This work and its story remain to be imagined and “nowhere,” while perhaps daunting, presents the very occasion. Similarly, Prayer Room—awash in its soft pink, the red florals the only subject matter aside from the paned arch—speaks to both the end of a dark path and a hopeful new beginning after the passing of Ennis’ mother. And Dogpark, which is the distant window from Danseur, may depict a place of rest after chaos. In this cyclical, self-referential nature these paintings develop a deeply emotive and layered continuity. For Ennis, the realm of painting exists as a response to the internal, and these works are a direct reaction to the pandemic, loss, addiction, sobriety, isolation, identity, love, and fatherhood. Like journal entries each demonstrates a desire for personal growth. Whether a result of observation, acceptance, or self-actualization, what’s felt is a sincere stylistic and thematic maturation of an artist coming out of hiding.

Ty Ennis (born 1981, Spokane, WA) lives and works in Portland, OR, where he graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2003 with a BFA in Printmaking. His work was previously included in the 2006 Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum. He has exhibited across Portland at Nationale, New American Art Union, Pulliam Deffenbaugh, Open Gallery, and the Art Gym at Marylhurst University; in Seattle, WA, at Prole Drift; and in Los Angeles, CA, at William H Bothy. Ennis has received grants from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Oregon Arts Commission. He is represented by Nationale.

PRESS & MORE
Curated Things to Do in Portland This Week, Matthew Trueherz, Portland Monthly, September 7, 2023
Get Thee to a Gallery, Ashley Gifford Peterson, Portland Mercury’s Fall Arts Preview, September 6, 2023
Recommended Visual Art Pick, EverOut/Portland, September 2023

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