Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 24" X 30"
Proclivity To Shadow The Sun
Oil on aluminum panel
24" X 30"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 24" X 24"
Pinwheels In The Wind
Oil on panel
24" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 18" X 18"
Glass Skies
Oil on panel
18" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
The Weight Of Cezanne's Apples
12" X 12"
Oil on panel
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 12" X 12"
Thorn Of The Recalcitrant
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 84" X 66"
Synesthesia
Oil on panel
84" X 66"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 30" X 24"
Sold DotSymbiotic Mitosis
Oil on aluminum panel
30" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 14
Starbursts
Oil on panel
14
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotStrawman And The Wooden Puppet
12" X 12"
Oil on panel
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 48" X 48"
Shackled Wanderer
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 48" X 48"
Rapid Cognition
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 24" X 18"
Pale Glitter Archives
Oil on paper
24" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 30" X 24"
Nexus One
Oil on aluminum panel
30" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 24" X 30"
Mystic Garden
Oil on aluminum panel
24" X 30"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 16" X 11"
Iris Rotation
Oil on paper
16" X 11"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 8" X 8"
Influx Ascendant
Oil on panel
8" X 8"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 14" X 11"
Flowers, Bones and Shoe Leather
Oil on panel
14" X 11"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 18" X 18"
Frost Creep
Oil on panel
18" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 24" X 18"
Eye of Sahara
Oil on paper
24" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 8" X 8"
Dissident Resident
Oil on panel
8" X 8"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 10" X 10"
Cosmic Oceans Fractal Tides
Oil on panel
10" X 10"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 12" X 12"
Columns, Clouds and Flowers
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 11" X 14"
Conscious Cloud
Oil on panel
11" X 14"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 12" X 12"
Sold DotCelestial Progenitor
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 84" X 66"
Chromesthesia
Oil on canvas
84" X 66"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Celestial Sawdust
12" X 12"
Oil on panel
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 16" X 16"
Bifurcation Atlas Burden
Oil on panel
16" X 16"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 48" X 48"
Apparition Wave Form
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 14" X 11"
Barred Spirals
Oil on panel
14" X 11"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 12" X 12"
Abstracta Botanica
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 8" X 8"
Wayfinder
Oil on panel
8" X 8"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 12" X 12"
Breaking The Surface Tension
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 18" X 24"
Vector Point Vector
Oil on canvas
18" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 62" X 72"
Entangled Mirage
Oil on canvas over panel
62" X 72"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 30" X 40"
Fractured Inertia
Oil on canvas
30" X 40"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange 48" X 72"
Aquaterra
Oil on canvas over panel
48" X 72"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
SR 4 West
36" X42"
Oil on canvas
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotLeaving Winter Behind
48" X 48"
Oil on canvas
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotAuspicious Origin
48" X 48"
Oil on canvas
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotA Cross Cut Against Stagnation
48" X 48"
Oil on canvas
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotShip of Theseus
Oil on canvas
24" X 30"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotCentral Plain With Purple
Oil on canvas
30" X 40"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotPhuture Form
Oil on canvas
48" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotSatiated Expansion
Oil on canvas
30" X 40"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotHeavenly Sheen Misplaced
Oil on panel
24" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotTearing Off The Edge
Oil on panel
18" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotFrom Here to There and Back
Oil on panel
18" X 18"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Lapse and Crash
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotFigure at The Edge
Oil on panel
10" X 10"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotExit To
Oil on panel
10" X 10"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotBack To The Edge
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotA Quag of Inappropriate Proportions
Oil on panel
10" X 10"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotSo Many Wilds
Oil on canvas
60" X 72"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotInto The Sound
Oil on canvas
60" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotSemiotics
Oil on panel
24" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotReduced Stanchion
Oil on canvas
24" X 30"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotLiquid Bloom
Oil on panel
24" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotA Deeper Dryft
Oil on canvas
48" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Ascendant Sun
Oil on panel
9" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotArticulated
Oil on canvas
48" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotBroken Flag Orange on Blue
Oil on panel
42" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotBroken Docks With Gold Light
Oil on panel
48" 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotEast Wind at Sunset
Oil on panel
60" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil
Sold DotWooden Boat
Oil
18" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil
Sold DotWraith of Knappton
Oil
18" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotUntitled
Oil on panel
6" X 6"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on Canvas
Sold DotRiver Steps
Oil on Canvas
60" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotReach
Oil on canvas
40" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotPhuturestock
Oil on panel
6" X 6"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil
Sold DotFrost Water
Oil
11" X 14"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil
Sold DotBeard
Oil
18" X 24"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotCut
Oil on panel
6" X 6"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil
Sold DotColumbia Winter
Oil
11" X 14"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotColumbia Steps
Oil on canvas
60" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotSunbeach
Oil on canvas
24" X 30"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotRed
Oil on canvas
40" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotBrown
Oil on canvas
40" X 48"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on panel
Sold DotEvent
Oil on panel
12" X 12"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotChicane
Oil on canvas
42" X 60"
Imogen Gallery Darren Orange Oil on canvas
Sold DotBlue
Oil on canvas
40" X 48"

Review:
Paracosm by Darren Orange at Imogen Gallery, Astoria, Oregon
September 9-October 9, 2023

by Richard Speer for Visual Art Source

In the 19 years since I first reviewed a Darren Orange exhibition (a 2004 solo show at Eva Lake’s erstwhile gallery, Lovelake, in northwest Portland), the painter has continued a long inquiry into the landscape of the region that nurtured him, the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised in Yakima, Washington, to third-generation apple orchardists, later earning a B.A. in painting with an art-history minor at Western Washington University, he has lived in Astoria, Oregon, since 2000, with the exception of a two-year stint in Santa Fe, New Mexico. During that time, he has transliterated the Northwest’s rivers, mountains, forests, and logging towns into the métier of abstracted landscape. His palette has tended toward earth tones, his gestures toward natural and human-made referents such as the cut of the horizon line across the Pacific Ocean or the span of the iconic Astoria-Megler Bridge, which connects Oregon and Washington. This stylistic and thematic consistency makes his new exhibition, Paracosm, all the more remarkable as a departure.

The 33 oil paintings in Paracosm (all from 2022 and 2023 and created on canvas, paper, wood panel, and aluminum panel) leave concrete referents behind in favor of pure abstraction and trade his customary color palette of browns, blacks, and subdued gray-periwinkles for bright, bracing sherbet hues that look good enough to eat. Nothing in Orange’s prior work prepared me for the pinks and juicy oranges of the show’s centerpiece work, the 7-foot by 5.5-foot “Synesthesia,” nor the lemon-yellows and bubblegum blues in “Proclivity to Shadow the Sun,” nor the scrumptious cherry reds in “Glass Skies.” This artist has always excelled at flowing, self-assured brushwork; in fact, arguably, his most successful paintings have been those in which bravura representational passages verged on abstraction. His current deep-dive into pure gesture seems to have liberated and invigorated him. A centrifugal force animates compositions such as “Thorn of the Recalcitrant” and “Abstracta Botanica,” their crescent-shaped gestures telegraphing mass and motion hurtling outward. The works on aluminum panel, in particular, lend themselves to what he calls “a wild ride in slippery, wet viscosity that makes the painting action fast and loose.” The surfaces are thick with impasto, perhaps a nod to the mutant textures of Anselm Kiefer, one of his big influences.

I place Orange’s style in the company of four Northwest painters of roughly his generation: Timothy Scott Dalbow, Jason Dickason, my late partner Dorothy Goode, and Scott Wayne Indiana in his work circa 2004-2007—assertive, intuitive, and very much in the lineage of Abstract Expressionism. Lucinda Parker and Barbara Sternberger began working in this mode a generation earlier in exhibitions for Laura Russo/Russo Lee and Elizabeth Leach, respectively. That Orange has reshuffled the bones of this approach into something appreciably fresher, having ditched the woodsy hues and heavily varnished surfaces of his incipient years for a brasher, more exultant palette without varnish, evinces a hyperspace jump after two decades of reliably consistent aesthetic.

Although this is his fourth solo exhibition at Imogen, it’s his first in the gallery’s expanded exhibition space, which doubled in size with a remodel in late 2021/early 2022. A light-filled white cube, warmed up by rustic wooden beams holding up the ceiling, it is well suited for large-scale paintings such as Oranges and sculptures such as M.J. Anderson’s, whose show preceded Orange’s. It’s hard to overestimate Imogen’s impact on the Oregon Coast art ecosystem over the past decade. Director/founder Teri Sund opened up shop in August 2012, incorporating coast-based artists such as Anderson and Marc Boone, as well as Portlanders like Corey Arnold, Tom Cramer, and Matthew Dennison, Lauren Mantecón from Santa Fe, and Anne Grgich from Seattle. She has an eye for work that is regional but not regionalist. This is not the place to buy a sunset-and-sand print to cart home as a souvenir of your vacation on Cannon Beach, and while the gallery does have a section for ceramics, glass, and jewelry, the doubling of the exhibition square footage keeps the ratio of contemporary art to craft at around 85/15, which is just about right for an integral but pragmatic seaside art space.

Orange’s abstractions look suave and commanding here, their nubby surfaces, bold gesturalism, and Pop Art palette exuding a heady confidence as they update the painter’s Northwest ethos with an agreeable jolt of flash and verve.