Rae Mahaffey



Rae Mahaffey
Figures #671, 676 & 682 2008
oil on wood panel
48" x 54"

Rae Mahaffey explores color, pattern and perspective to describe elements in the world around us.  She paints abstractly, expressing visual experiences and the subconscious through formal artistic means.  By contrasting geometric and 3-dimensional forms with organic patterns and color, Mahaffey begins to question traditional perceptions.  Juxtaposing forms in unexpected ways, her spatial compositions are playful and modern.  In this exhibition, Engineering, the work is influenced by both the old and the new.  An engineering book from the 1930s inspires some of her spatial forms, defining space and geometric structures.  The illusory space is built up from opaque and transparent paint using synthetic and organic pigments.  Some trompe l’oeil of the wood surface enhances this illusory quality.  Mahaffey’s fresh, direct approach, whether in paint, prints or glass, is thought provoking, visceral and contemporary.

Rae Mahaffey studied at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the University of Washington.  She moved from Seattle to Los Angeles in l988 where she worked as a curator for Gemini G.E.L. and as a consultant for David Hockney's studio.  She moved to Portland in 1992 to start Mahaffey Fine Art print studio with her husband Mark.  Exhibitions include the Portland Art Museum, OR, Marylhurst Art Gym, OR, Maryhill Museum, WA, and the Schomburg Gallery in Santa Monica.  Her 2008 commissions include a Washington State Arts Commission for Gray Middle School, in Tacoma and the Pacific First Center, Harsch Investment Properties, in Portland. 

More examples by Rae Mahaffey

Sherrie Wolf


Sherrie Wolf
Tulips with Concert of Birds
Reference: Frans Snyder, 1579-1657 2008
oil on canvas
36" x 48"

The paintings of Northwest artist, Sherrie Wolf are influenced by the artist’s joy of still life and a strong interest in European and American art history.  Wolf plays with illusion by combining still lifes with elements of paintings from art history, a technique that connects her work to the traditions of reinterpretation and artistic borrowing.  Sherrie explains, “As a still-life painter, I openly play with artifice and historical references.  I arrange related objects in front of excerpts from old master paintings, and discover interactions between these two invented worlds.”  In this exhibition, Animal Life, the still life plays with the narrative, various animals peek out or co-mingle with the flowers or fruit.  Here, the artist experiments with juxtaposition and camouflage to discover the work’s narrative resonance.

Sherrie Wolf graduated from the Museum Art School, now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, in 1974 and received an MA from the Chelsea College of Art in London, England in 1975.  She began exhibiting her work in the mid 1970s while teaching art at PNCA.  Her work is included in such collections as The Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, Portland Art Museum; Hallie Ford Museum, Salem, OR; City of Seattle; Washington State Art Collection; and Southern Oregon State College, Ashland.  Homage, an actual-scale re-creation painted by Sherrie Wolf of Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio: A Real Allegory will be on view at the Art Gym, Marylhurst College, Nov. 2 – Dec. 7^th, 2008.

More examples by Sherrie Wolf

Upcoming 2008-09 Exhibitions:

February 5 – 28, 2009
Jack Portland – New Paintings
Wang Gongyi– Works on Paper

March 5 – 28
Mel Katz – Recent Sculpture
Roll Hardy – New Paintings

April 2 – May 2
Jay Backstrand – New Paintings
Erik Stotik - Paintings