Interesting work springs from the interesting mind of one Portland artist

By Bob Keefer
The Register-Guard
Published: March 27, 2008 12:00AM

Let’s start with the Web. Jamie Newton’s Web site is called www.concretewheels.com, and if that name doesn’t tip you off that he’s not as stuffy as some other artists out there, then nothing will.

Click on that address and you’ll get a pretty good overview of Newton’s broad range of painting, drawing, sculpture and video work.

A second starting place is Newton’s résumé, displayed in a notebook on a side table at Eugene’s White Lotus Gallery, which is showing recent work by the Portland artist through April 15.

His résumé might be the best I’ve ever seen from an artist.

It starts off with a quote from musician John Cage — “I have nothing to say, and I’m saying it” — and proceeds, conversationally, to give an excellent overview of this midcareer artist’s life without ever once being boring, on one hand, or pretentious, on the other.

Enough preamble.

Newton is a bit all over the map in terms of artistic mediums. But the centerpiece of this excellent show is a series of simple monochrome paintings in acrylic on board that he’s done in the past year, inspired by his love of traditional sumi ink painting.

The lush paintings are soft, sumptuous landscapes that range from the realistic but imaginative to nearly pure abstraction. His hills and valleys are reminiscent of the high desert landscapes of James Lavadour, if Lavadour ran out of colored pigments.

Newton coaxes a subtle texture out of acrylic that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. The surface of his paintings looks as organic as hair.

Some of the paintings are divided into small grids, squares a couple of inches across, that might represent the view through an insect’s multiplex eye, or, more simply, a large tick-tack-toe board.

All of the paintings are quietly reflective. The gallery is displaying them along with some of his earlier sumi ink work, which is much more abstract.

Newton, who showed at the gallery in 2005, started out his artistic life as a photographer, influenced by Ansel Adams, Minor White and Edward Weston.

Many of these newer paintings remind me of black-and white-landscape photographs.

White Lotus Gallery also is showing an assortment of Newton’s sculptures, generally made from found objects and look as though they were inspired by a childhood spent with Erector Sets.

They include “frost catchers,” odd mechanical lattices that are designed to attract and grow frost when left outside, and Rube Goldberg-like drawing machines, powered by wind or solar cells, that make fairly inconsequential marks on paper when left outside.

This is a fascinating show that clearly springs from a fascinating mind.