Art Galleries

This content was published: January 10, 2020. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.

David Eckard

Sylvania North View Gallery

Placards and Placeholders

Mixed media sculpture hangs on a white gallery wall. The lower half of the artwork is painted wood and depicts a jeweled necklace and white wrapped fabric. The upper part of the piece is a padded turban like shape made of shiny red fabric, with white buttons imbedded in it. A tail like drape of artificial grey hair is draped on the right side of the object.

Quite, Quite, 2019, painted wood, fabric, leather, mirror, artificial hair, 45.5″ x 28″ x 3″

  • Dates: January 15 to February 15, 2020
  • Opening reception and gallery talk: Thursday, January 16, 2-4pm
  • Weekend opening: Saturday, January 18, 3-5pm

The North View Gallery is pleased to present new work by Portland-based artist David Eckard. This work continues his explorations combining rendered images with fabricated forms and structures. Eckard’s sculptural rebuses offer up visual riddles built from a personal vocabulary of evocative forms, pragmatic materials and presentational invitation.

Placards and Placeholders

Notes from Eckard’s studio journals:

…scores and schematics of fantasies and fetishes for an aging body (recalling).

…monk, dancing bear, trip hazard, jester, huckster.

…the power/cowardice of opaque emblems (shield/banner), icons and coy ciphers.  Yours?

…verse, chorus, punchline.

The artist hopes you will come and discover your own answers.

Panorama view of gallery. On the left and right walls are large scale mixed media sculptures that hang on the wall, some with elements that fall onto or stand on the floor. There are six artworks on the right wall and six artworks on the left wall. At the center in the background are two square walls in front of a glass wall that shows the landscape outside. The left back wall has a sculpture that stands on the floor and leans on the wall. The right back wall has three small paintings. On the floor in the middle of the gallery are two mixed media sculptures. All the artworks are multicolored and abstract. The materials used include, metal, wood, fabric, hair, leather, and paint, among other things.

David Eckard utilizes diverse materials, techniques and presentational strategies in his studio practice. Futility, function, authority, queer masculinity and persona are the primary notions investigated, critiqued, and exploited in his work. Eckard fabricates fictive artifacts and enigmatic objects with a variety of materials and techniques. These sculptures exist as singular objects, installation components and performance props. His rendered works on panel and paper are biomorphic, sexualized schematics that address the body as carrier of histories, fantasies, potential and trauma. Through performance, Eckard orchestrates transient theatrics and deploys temporary monuments in civic spaces for incidental audiences.

Large scale mixed media sculpture sits on a concrete floor in a gallery. The artwork is abstract and multicolored. On the right of the piece is a blue circle within which is an opening that is painted in trompe l'oeil style to resemble folds and flesh or bone like forms. The circle is attached to two pieces of bent metal, painted light yellow, which sit on the floor. At the other end of the bent metal is a pink metal wire form from which is suspended a white fabric baglike shape. On the bottom right of the sculpture is a long wooden pole that extends from the yellow metal curves across to a small orange stand.

Cornucopia (theatrics of worth), 2020, painted wood, turned wood, steel, mirror, fabric, wool, leather, sand

About the artist

Eckard has exhibited internationally and his work has been reviewed in Art in America, Sculpture, Flash Art, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and Artnews. He is the recipient of multiple fellowships and awards including the Individual Artist Fellowship (2015, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland, OR), the Hallie Ford Fellowship in the Visual Arts (2010, Ford Family Foundation, Portland, OR) and the Bonnie Bronson Fellowship (2010, Portland, OR).He is an Associate Professor and Head of the Sculpture Department at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon.

  • Mixed media sculpture mounted on white gallery wall. A shaped wooden panel is painted in trompe l'oeil style, a brownish floral form with a yellow protrusion below. At the bottom end of the panel is a hole from which a long tail of dark grey artificial hair is hanging.
  • Large mixed media sculpture that is mounted on a white gallery wall, with elements that are on the floor. A large shaped wood panel is painted in trompe l'oeil style to look like brown rock forms; this is the top of the sculpture. A white metal bar is mounted in front of that, while a fabric panel hangs below. A brown metal bar with legs sits on the floor. The lower right of the sculpture is another trompe l'oeil painted wood panel that depicts grey rocks and brown wood.
  • Large mixed media sculpture installed on white galelry wall. To the right side is an elongated triangular shaped wood panel that is painted in trompe l'oeil style to appear to have curves and dimension. Colors include browns, ochres and reds. A yellow metal bar extends from the center of this panel and curves to the left, ending in a circular form. A red wire cone shaped form with a white rope is suspended from the yellow circle, and a white bullet like plumb hangs from the red wires. On the floor are four small wooden rectangular shapes with black centers.
  • Large mixed media sculpture installed on a white gallery wall. A brown metal bar with three hooks is mounted to the wall on both ends, jutting out about 5 inches. A paddle shaped wood panel hangs from the center hook, and on it is a painting of a round yellow form on a pink circular background. A black rope with a red metal ring on each end hangs on the two other hooks.
  • Small abstract painting painted in trompe l'oeil style. In the top right corner is a grey trapezoidal shape that sits on top of a red band that sits on top of a purple diamond shape, that in turn sits on a slender green band. On the bottom left corner is a white angular form adjacent to a curved white shape. Going across the bottom is a yellow and grey shape on top of which is a blue band. The dominant form begins on the upper left and extends into the center of the painting. This is area is layered with shades of grey, orange and yellow and a whiteplant like form is drawn on top of those colors.
  • Large mixed media sculpture installed on a white gallery wall. A silver metal rod is affixed to the wall and a shaped wood panel hangs from it. The panel is painted in trompe l'oeil style. Above the rod are six smaller painted forms that are suspended from the wall and attached to the rod with white. In the middle of the form is a red wire that creates a curved line across the image.
  • Long slender mixed media sculpture installed to hang on white gallery wall and extend onto the floor. Wood panel shaped like a long plant form is painted trompe l'oeil style, resembling a green stem on top with a pink protrusion below that. At the bottom of the pink end of the panel a piece of brown leather that connects to a brown painted panel on the floor. On this panel is a piece of yellow fake fur in the shape of a figure eight.
  • Large mixed media sculpture mounted on the wall with an element extending to the floor. A wood panel is painted in trompe l'oeil style with abstract curved forms. Colors include greens, greys, yellows, reds and white. A metal wire is attached at the bottom and curves up towards the middle of he panel. A long peach colored fabric is draped from the wire and falls to the grey floor.
  • Long slender mixed media sculpture installed with one end on the wall and the other end sitting on the floor. A red metal bracket is mounted on the wall at the top of the piece, and a green belt connects it to a red metal tripod that is on the floor. The belt is pulled taut between the two. A pink wire form hangs from the bracket and attached to its end is a pink wire elongated conelike form with a red ball and grey bullet like plumb at the end. This plumb is suspended at the center of the tripod on the floor.
  • Large mixed media sculpture with elements mounted on the white gallery wall and elements place on the grey gallery floor. On the wall are two shaped wood panels painted in trompe l'oeil style with simple abstract forms, in browns and greys that define the top of the artwork. A yellow triangular piece of fabric attaches to a brown metal wire stand that holds a round black shallow pan with a silver interior on the floor to the left is a wooded club like form with a white rope on one end that connects it to the yellow fabric. To the right on the floor are abstract red shapes that look like spilled blood.
  • : Installation view of gallery shows five large scale mixed media sculptures hanging on a white wall in the background and one mixed media sculpture on the floor in the foreground. The artworks lean on the wall and/or sit on the floor and are abstract and multicolored.
  • Installation view of exhibition shows large scale mixed media sculptures on the floor and wall of the gallery. Four wall mounted artworks are in the background, and on the right in the middle of the floor is an artwork that is close to the ground and made of bent metal, appearing as though it may rock. In the foreground is a tall sculpture with a central pipe from which hang three wooden paddle shapes with paintings on then. The piece stands on three metal legs, and at the top of the artwork is a white form in the shape of a "J" that is made of stuffed fabric. All the works are abstract and multicolored.

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 8am-4pm, Saturday 11am-4pm

Directions: Follow signs to the bookstore and visitor parking. The gallery is located in the Communications and Technology (CT) building, adjacent to the bookstore, on the NE corner of campus.