Press

Art Openers Ring In The New Year

Joseph Gallivan  ·  Portland Tribune  ·  January 3, 2006

January sees a mix of old and new in the galleries, as some play safe and some give all.

Definitely in the first category, Rob Tyler shows a video installation of his hand-drawn, hand-painted 16mm film paintings. Starting Friday at the Center Space Gallery he’ll set up 12 to 15 monitors showing loops of his short abstract films, which he hopes have a “soothing visual effect.” Stills also will be for sale.

Tyler’s method is amusing, to say the least . He bought a whole roll of clear “leader” film used in stringing 16mm movies to their reels, then using ink pens, nail polish and acrylics, he hand-paints each frame. In the computer he slowed down the images and softened the lines, but basically kept the same pattern.

Tyler also makes amusing little documentaries about well designed household objects.

His day job is doing graphics for the evening news at KOIN (6) – mainly, the little boxes that appear over an anchor’s shoulder saying “Child Abuse” or “Meth Arrest” – but he says it doesn’t have much affect on his art, other than to take time away from doing it. This show only took him seven years to complete.

Two bands play along with the visuals Friday at the gallery: In Support of Living, which he met while showing films in Toronto, and Portland’s Unrecognizable Now. Saturday at Holocene Tyler is part of Vision & Hearing, an evening of ambient music and video, including the same bands plus local oddball White Rainbow and Matt McCromick’s side project band Very Stereo.