Kelley Hungerford

A tall, dark-haired man wearing aviator sunglasses and a ’50s-style suit strides into the Miller Fine Arts Center. His white, spotless dress shirt shines beneath black vest, pants and jacket; the black-and-white attire stands out against vibrant paintings hung on the gallery walls.
Fashionably dressed and fashionably late to his own opening reception, the long-haired man is artist Timothy Scott Dalbow, whose volcano-themed paintings are displayed in the Linfield Fine Art Gallery.
“Obviously [for me], it’s all landscape-based,” Dalbow said. “You can see lots of mountains and volcanoes around Portland, so it was an easy subject to dive into.”
Looking like a character from a Wes Anderson film, the Portland artist produces work that is as unique as he is. The exhibit, simply titled “Volcanoes,” comprises five abstract oil paintings of volcanoes in the Northwest. Each piece has a frenzy of wide brush strokes and a vivid color palette.
“It’s a very clean show with very messy paintings,” Cris Moss, adjunct professor of art and visual culture and gallery coordinator, said, referring to the contrast of the mostly bare gallery with the elaborately colored paintings.
In fact, the oil paintings are so “messy” that Moss said when he and Dalbow were moving them, some of the paintings were still moist with oil.
“I think I play with a lot of things that you’re not supposed to do in painting,” Dalbow said.
He elaborated that he often puts content in the corners and the dead center of the canvas, which many
artists avoid. He also said he “uses colors a lot of people would find worthless,” but that he likes to make these elements work.
Moss knew Dalbow from undergraduate school and said that Dalbow frequented opening receptions at the Linfield gallery after Moss was hired as gallery director. This gesture went a long way, Moss said, so he decided to visit Dalbow’s studio, too.
His “painting fun-house” was covered in oil paints, and Moss said he was impressed with Dalbow’s work, so he invited him to put up a show at Linfield.
“[Dalbow’s] very free with his painting, and he’s very confident,” Moss said. “He’s a very prolific painter.”
This free, abstract style is attractive to senior studio and electronic art major Nick Jauregui, who attended the exhibition’s opening reception April 15.
Jauregui said he likes how colorful the paintings are, and he enjoys the experience he takes away from viewing the art.
“It’s not one thing,” he said. “It’s more like, ‘What does this make you think; how does this make you feel?’”
Although he said he wished there were more pieces on display, Jauregui said this is his favorite show so far this year.
Conor Peterson, Nicholson Library computer technician, also attended the reception and said the exciting colors make the paintings jump off the stark-white walls.
“I like that they’re local mountains,” he said. “They’re really playful and look like they’re fleshy in some cases.”
Peterson said he also thought there was a piece missing, but it was nice to have breathing room.
But Moss purposefully left much of the gallery empty for this show. The last exhibit, “21st Century Iconographic Clayworks,” featured the work of 33 artists on pedestals throughout the space. Here, Moss said the gallery works as a stage to view Dalbow’s work.
“[The paintings] benefit from being in their own environment, so people can stand back and take in each piece with room to breathe,” he said.
Although the opening reception only received about 15 viewers, Moss said he tried not to let the low turn-out get him down. The isolation of the art building and the clash of another art-related event that evening were probably the reasons for such a small crowd, he said.
But the low attendance is no reason to doubt the exhibit’s appeal. The paintings are an eruption of dramatic colors and abstraction.
Moss said the paintings are easy to get lost in and revisit, like a book you can read over and over again but still enjoy.
“I really like the fact that it’s an exhibit you can keep returning to,” he said.
The Linfield Fine Art Gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 503-883-2804 or visit www.linfield.edu/art/gallery.php.