Malia Jensen‘s irreverent sculptural installation is now on view in the Concourse D display case through May, 2027. A large painted bear pulls herself up from a “hole” in the floor, emerging from hibernation into a glass box inside of an airport. How long was I gone? So much has changed!
Perhaps anticipating her arrival, a sculptural orange cone is placed nearby. The ceramic cone, titled, Look Out, was made using clay that the artist dug from the woods near Willamina, Oregon – where she spent eight formative years of her childhood in the 1970’s – and is meant to collapse the distance between the warning and the event itself.
In approaching this exhibition, the artist writes:
“When I was invited to create a temporary installation for the Port of Portland, this vitrine immediately drew my attention. The thick glass and steel frame called to mind the Natural History Museum dioramas that fascinated me as a teenager visiting New York City for the first time in the 1980’s. How macabre were those nature scenes boxed up in the middle of a city, encasing wordless dramas not unlike the mysterious inner life of a struggling teenager or a traveler on an epic quest.”
Here within this glass case, itself held within the container of the airport, a small scene unfolds as one painterly bear takes a pose of becoming, inviting viewers to slow down and take note, possibly feeling a sense of interconnection rippling out into the universe as we catch flights across this precious planet, all of us playing our rolls in an enormous diorama.
Malia Jensen lives and works in Portland, OR. 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
For more information about this exhibition or artwork inquiries, please contact malia@maliajensen.com or visit maliajensenstudio.com
@maliajensenstudio