Art born of odds and ends.Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard Peter Herley's abstract paintings and David Miller's metal sculpture, on exhibit at the new Fenario Gallery in downtown Eugene through the end of April, show how a couple of enterprising artists can create fine art from the cheapest of materials. Herley, once a rising star in the 1980s New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of art scene, now has a day job in a Eugene stock room to support his art habit. That leaves him little time to paint and very little money to buy canvas. So he's done his latest round of paintings - and Herley is a prolific painter - on sheets of plywood plywood, manufactured board composed of an odd number of thin sheets of wood glued together under pressure with grains of the successive layers at right angles. Laminated wood differs from plywood in that the grains of its sheets are parallel. screwed down to one-inch boards reinforcing the back. The screw heads protrude pro·trude v. 1. To push or thrust outward. 2. To jut out; project. into the paintings, giving them a rough but interesting appearance. Surprisingly, this works well for his art. The bright, swirling colors merge nicely with the industrial look of the materials. Herley also has been playing recently with constructed paintings, made from the sliced-up and reassembled scraps of old - and presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. unsatisfactory - work, leading to a kind of artistic rebirth re·birth n. 1. A second or new birth; reincarnation. 2. A renaissance; a revival: a rebirth of classicism in architecture. . Because his work in the show is unframed, some of the constructions are no longer rectangular but have complex, starlike shapes, which he's simply pinned to the white gallery wall. Herley is a bit all over the map here, what with constructed works, circular works and traditional rectangles side by side. No one painting stands head and shoulders above the rest. And yet, at its best, his painting is haunting and provocative. One of the rectangles, "A New Outside," captures the best of what his painting is about, with its fast-moving, spontaneous bursts of color not of the white race; - commonly meaning, esp. in the United States, of negro blood, pure or mixed. See also: Color , painted as through the artist never stopped even a moment for a breath. The sculptor, Miller, also holds down a day job, at a metal fabrication fabrication (fab´rikā´sh  n),n the construction or making of a restoration. plant, where he enjoys access to metal scrap - cut ends of I-beams, say, or large semi-circular pieces of sheet metal. He uses these to great advantage in works such as "Pair," a three-dimensional diptych, two open steel columns each more than 5 feet tall and about a foot in diameter. Each is built of steel scraps - one appears formed of chisels, though it isn't, and the other of simpler pieces - that look like they were whirled  This article or section contains information about an unreleased video game.The content may change substantially as more information becomes available. in a blender and then caught and welded together in mid flight. If you want work that speaks to you loudly, "When Waves Meet," a set of circular steel pieces held together like a section of 4-foot-diameter spring coil, clashes with a satisfying if ear-splitting voice when you run your hand across its rings. EXHIBIT REVIEW Paintings by Peter Herley; sculpture by David Miller David Miller could refer to any of the following:
Where: Fenario Gallery, 507 Willamette St. When: Through April 30; hours are noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday CAPTION(S): Peter Herley's ``A New Outside'' includes swaths of color painted on paper. Wayne Eastburn / The Register-Guard Abstract paintings by Peter Herley and metal sculpture by David Miller are on exhibit at the new Fenario Gallery, across from the Willamette Street post office in downtown Eugene. In the center is Miller's ``When Waves Meet.'' |
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