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Stephen Hayes, a democracy of images + Malia Jensen, Look Out


  • Elizabeth Leach Gallery 417 Northwest 9th Avenue Portland, OR, 97209 United States (map)

Hours: 10:30am - 5:30pm


The Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present two powerful solo exhibitions from artists Stephen Hayes and Malia Jensen. Opening November 2, both shows will run through December 30, 2023.

The gallery is delighted to welcome back Stephen Hayes for his 21st solo show with the gallery. In this body of work Hayes pushes the boundaries of his impressionistic landscapes, utilizing color and dynamic brushwork to create enthralling compositions.

Hayes is unafraid to deliver the unexpected throughout the peaceful compositions of this show. A hazy blue sky may be interrupted by a brash sweep of red, or an expanse of green field peppered with bright blue drip lines. His improvisational brush work skillfully guides the viewer’s eye, leading them through the landscapes with diligent attention to which details require a visual break or fresh pop of color. The collective title for this body of work, a democracy of images is an allusion to our relative willingness to believe what we see, in the face of what we know. We see the beauty of ‘place’ and find ourselves able or unable to reconcile the truth of current events as they relate to that beauty. Over the last several years, Hayes has used Google Earth images as inspiration and source material for his paintings. Hayes continues this practice in his new series, however the paintings that depict images of Ukraine and Kenya are a response to outdated images of those countries found online. Some of the ‘current’ resource photos available are from as long ago as 2003 and clearly do not illustrate today’s conflicts. As a result, they ask us to reconcile the contradiction between belief and truth. The images from around this country do the same. In the U.S. we are faced with the need to reconcile ongoing inequities predicated on hierarchies of class, race, gender, with a history of violent genocide against Indigenous peoples. The land is beautiful and full of poetry, and in this country all of it has been stolen from an Indigenous populace. The question remains: should one focus on the solace of beauty? Is the magical illusion of Google Earth a benefit or a distraction for us as we seek to reconcile this truth? Is the premise of ‘democracy’ an equivalent act of artful deception that we are constantly asked to address? Hayes expresses a staggering dichotomy with these tranquil landscapes while deftly illustrating his skill as a painter in capturing their natural beauty.

Stephen Hayes has shown his work locally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), The Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), Northwest Museum of Art and Culture (Spokane, WA), American Culture Center (Sapporo and Nagoya, Japan), and The Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.). He has had several commissions for public art projects in the region, and his works can be found in the collections of Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR), New York Public Library (New York, NY), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), University of Oregon (Eugene, OR), and Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel (Portland, OR), as well as numerous private and public collections. In 2013 Hayes was the subject of a 30 year career retrospective at the Hoffman Gallery at Lewis & Clark College (Portland, OR), which included a fully illustrated catalogue. In recognition of his accomplished career and dedicated studio art practice, Hayes was awarded a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship.


The Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Malia Jensen’s exhibition Look Out.  Jensen populates the space with her imaginative sculpture and ceramic work, locating her signature dark humor and material beauty in subjects ranging from trophy-mounted seals sporting clown ruffs to carefully crafted clay traffic cones and a bronze woodpecker hard at work. 

Much of Look Out builds on an oceanic theme as Jensen utilizes her visual language to consider our imperiled oceans and the myriad forces at play beneath the surface. Two salt-fired ceramic sculptures entitled Tide Table (1 and 2) depict opposing waves breaking against one another. Supported by sturdy oak tables built by the artist, the Tide Tables invite viewers to consider different perspectives, as well as giving a nod to the challenges of this undertaking. Jensen brings seals, a common and often benign presence at the ocean shore, to the forefront of our minds. She elevates the seals as subject and also, with their comical ruffs, points to ways humanity has often trained, used and commodified the animal. A series of ceramic orange traffic cones, made by incorporating clay dug from the ground at sites personally significant to the artist, have been captured in different stages of dilapidation. They serve a similar purpose here to what they accomplish out in the world: signaling a crisis, warning of instability. With the artwork in this exhibition Jensen urges us to pay attention, to look outwards, as we examine our relationship with nature and our own complex role as part of it. 

Malia Jensen lives and works in Portland, OR. Jensen’s recently completed monumental bronze sculpture, Endless Pigeons, can be viewed in the plaza of the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts as part of Converge 45’s, Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues and institutions including the Melbourne International Arts Festival (Melbourne, Australia), Schneider Museum of Art (Ashland, OR), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR), Tacoma Art Museum (Tacoma, WA), Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (Milwaukee, WI), Holter Museum of Art (Helena, MT), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Mesa Arts Center (Mesa, AZ), Marian Goodman Gallery (London, England), Richard Gray Gallery (Chicago, IL), and Cristin Tierney Gallery (New York, NY). She has been an Artist in Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (Captiva, FL), Ucross Foundation (Clearmont, WY), Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA) and the Portland Garment Factory (Portland, OR); and a visiting artist and speaker at Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA), Southern Oregon University (Ashland, OR), Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR), and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Boston, MA). She has completed numerous public commissions in the Northwestern United States, and her work is held in many public and private collections. Jensen has been represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery since 2006.