Long Lost

Gildar Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of new nostalgic works by Portland artist Ryan Everson titled Long Lost. Using "re-imagined objects" Everson transports his viewers back to a seemingly simpler and more mysterious existence before the birth of an easily searchable world —a time when a navigation system was an overly wrinkled topographic map and a heart for adventure. However tangible though, Everson's recollections are nonetheless a fantasy. It is this very sense of yearning for something that never truly existed that his work examines. Coupling retro hand made signage with altered childhood explorer objects and plywood constructions Everson creates a believable past to return to. Using broad terms of longing in his sign pieces like "missing out" and "alone again" the artist taps into a universal sense of loss. Vintage Boy Scout walkie talkies, knapsacks and arrows help lead us deeper into the fog of this fabricated yet familiar memory. Documenting his pieces in environmental settings, Everson further heightens this sense of suspended reality. Although illusion plays a major role in the sentiment of Everson's work the artist is indebted to his real world artistic predecessors. One can't help but see within Everson's rustic vision images of great American folktales; Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi, Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy barreling down a stretch of highway, the Hardy Boy's unearthing a clue. In his use of language Everson finds himself amongst a lineage of fine artists working with the impact of the aphorism such as Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Krueger and Jenny Holzer, while his carefully handcrafted representations recall the wooden recreations of artists such as Tom Sachs and Lee Stoetzel. While Everson's work invites audiences to develop their own mythology with it, he cannot deny his own personal desire for the inexplicable: "My life becomes increasingly planned, documented and recounted, and as time passes I become comfortable. Longing for the moments when I was confronted by the expanse of uncertainty, I look for new ways to feel the fear and excitement of being truly lost."