An exhibit of photographer Brian Purnell’s work, Inside Out: Recent Portraits & Landscapes, will open at the Pendleton Center for the Arts on Thursday, June 2 with a reception for the artist from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The body of work presents two facets of Purnell’s broad interest in photography; amalgamated faces created intuitively, along with the formal composition of images of the Eastern Oregon landscape. Together these pieces ask the viewer to consider where the boundary between the land and ourselves lies, or if there is one at all.
Purnell had a long career teaching art, with many of those years spent at the Pendleton Alternative School. His work with teens continued after retirement with classes at the Pendleton Center for the Arts where he is instrumental in the pottery program in the Alice Fossatti Ceramics Studio. He also provides classes for adults.
Purnell’s photographic work spans a range of interests. The portraits are composite images that blend multiple faces, sometimes from one subject, sometimes from multiple subjects, into one complex and dynamic image. He follows his intuition in the process. His landscape works, by contrast, are focused on traditional composition and range of value. The subject matter is most often the Eastern Oregon landscape, a place he’s inhabited for more than 40 years.
Works will be on display in the East Oregonian Gallery at PCA through June 30. Works by Colton Spencer will be on view in the Lorenzen Gallery. Admission to see both exhibits is free, thanks to the support of Great Pacific Wine & Coffee Company. More information is available by calling 541-278-9201 or online at PendletonArts.org.
