March & April Featuring Jana Charl
Opening reception: March 5th 4:30-6:30pm. Artist statement below:
In June of 2025, I moved from Madras to Portland. A journey that actually began in December of 2017, when I moved from Los Angeles to Hay Creek Ranch. What was meant to be a temporary stopover at my uncle Gordon Clark’s ranch became a 7 1/2-year chapter of my life in Central Oregon that profoundly shaped both my work and my sense of belonging.
I am honored to be exhibiting once again at Art Adventure Gallery, surrounded by friends and community. This exhibition is deeply personal, and the Madras community I’ve grown close to is where I feel at ease being vulnerable.
My solo exhibition, This Is Not A Love Story, features mixed-media and acrylic paintings, including my Vessel series of 18 paintings created between 2004 and the present, each incorporating words about relationships. In consideration of Madras’s diverse population, I hand-made piñatas and integrated beadwork into paintings, honoring these practices as both art forms and powerful means of storytelling.
Opening after Valentine’s Day on March 5, the exhibition challenges the notion that relationships are fairy tales with simplistic, happily ever after endings. Instead, it acknowledges the messiness—misunderstandings, mistreatments, and emotional complexity. The show expresses a wide-range of emotions, often through humor and cynicism, while ultimately aiming to foster empowerment. Sharing and discussing these experiences is essential for building healthier connections. While the narrative is drawn from my perspective as a cis-straight woman, the themes extend universally—to all partners and all kinds of relationships.
Sustainability and conservation are central to my practice. Many materials in this body of work were destined for dump sites: weathered wood and a window frame; plastic mesh from produce bags; and burlap from coffee bean sacks. From an aesthetic point of view, I’m also fascinated by the textures and colors of salvaged items—plastics that retain their vibrant colors, metals that rust, paint that chips and fades, and textiles that unravel. I’m deeply engaged in the process of assembling, reconfiguring, and giving new life to these discoveries.
Often, I treat the canvas as a textile—cutting, sewing, and embroidering into its surface.
I’ve also approached it like paper, drawing on it, cutting out forms, and gluing them onto stretched canvas. I love the process of mixing pigments and exploring color, sometimes by partially blending colors before applying them, then continuing to manipulate them on the surface with brushes, palette knives, and my fingers.My hope is that This Is Not A Love Story resonates with our diverse community, at home in a gallery open to ALL.
Jana Charl
