PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT PAINTINGS EXHIBITION
  An audio description of this paintings exhibition recorded by the artist in his own words can be heard by calling 503-415-6897. |
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To see the full K.A. Colorado art news release on the Port of Portland web site, click on this link: http://www.portofportland.com/NewsRelease.aspx?newsContent....
An Exhibition of Four Paintings By K.A. Colorado,
Installed at the Portland International Airport Front Main Ticketing Lobby
"A 60-SECOND TIME-LAPSE OF THE WORLD"
AN EXHIBITION OF FOUR PAINTINGS INSTALLED AT THE
PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
FRONT MAIN TICKETING LOBBY
Public Art Installation By K.A. Colorado
This painting group attempts to capture the moment-by-moment change of cloud formations with color, density, and moisture evaporation, framing the absolute cold of Arctic significance.
The justification for this artwork implies the concept of fragility and interrelationship of natural phenomena such as clouds, air, water, and ice, with the portrayal of iceberg material. At the location in my Troutdale, Oregon studio, I am constantly reminded of the vistas, sunsets, and big skies that are continually displayed. The mood intended in the paintings significantly links all people to the common reaction and empathy shown atmospherically through air, water, and clouds that have no boundaries.
I am using the canvas of Oregon warm skies to focus on the fragility and magnificence of Polar iceberg structure. The skies portrayed are influenced by the Troutdale, Oregon horizon vistas, bringing to mind the link between how Polar absolute cold influences the Pacific Northwest. The fact that we view climate regionally is expanded in my works to also show the fundamental relationship of heat and cold in weather climate locations, linking the Pacific Northwest atmosphere to the influence of the Polar experience and Arctic regions.
I am currently working at my studio in Troutdale, Oregon, and reside half of the year in this location. The effect of the big skies in this semi-rural area has been a constant influence in my painting palette. The spectacular color range of late-summer-into-autumn skies have been a big factor in the chosen color palette utilized in the paintings. Having this location at the Troutdale airport has drawn my attention repeatedly to aircraft flight as an aesthetic visual device. Another factor has been the influence of the Gorge winds funneling down through the Columbia River providing constant change. Having worked in the Polar Arctic regions as well as with ice and snow sculpture around the world, I find this local Northwest cloudscape a spectacular impression that is equal to the tremendous Arctic Polar visual. The relationship and interdependence between the Pacific Northwest and the Polar Arctic provide both an intellectual tension and an artistic tension.
In the paintings, the word "ARCTIC" is used graphically as an aesthetic component, while the individual iceberg portraits also capture the sublime majestic structures of ice, and are portrayed as sympathetic to the warmness of the color sky background. The three iceberg images are isolated visually within geometric squares positioned on warm, humid-toned clouds depicted in a 60-second time-lapse. This time-lapse is an abstract measurement that I have taken artistic license to illustrate and includes a small aircraft moving through the pictorial spaces linking distance and time. In addition, the dancing airplanes provide a hint of humans' infinitesimal presence in the environment, but also represent humanity as a factor in the portrait and as being part of the big picture in the climate equation. The portrayal of the air, water, and deep cold interrelationship implies both the fragility and power that is found in natural earth properties framed in time. This aspect of time as a conceptual idea is further connected by the void left by the three iceberg images vanishing in time and space. It is my intended statement on the contemporary implications of global warming and its effect on climate.
I have also added a significantly somber color palette to the work that hints of Asian color harmonies of deep rust red and dark tonal qualities intended to mimic the somber mood of the 2011 Tsunami tragedy in Japan. This painting group was in the process of completion at my studio in Troutdale, Oregon during the time that the Japan Earthquake took place, and I have dedicated this work to the victims of the Japan Tsunami of March 2011.
K.A. Colorado
Standing underneath the K.A. Colorado Iceberg Art Paintings Exhibition at the Portland International Airport in the main terminal entrance lobby are (left to right): Mary R. Tahan, writer, producer, and filmmaker; Lynne Cox, arctic and open water swimmer who swam across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia; and Greta Blalock, Arts & Entertainment Coordinator for the Port of Portland and Portland International Airport.