Portland Oregon's Finest House Venue
Adventureland is a house venue in SE Portland where artists and musicians host a few live music events a month (Event List).
Adventureland also contains a gallery of abstract landscape artwork by the late Florida artist Darryl Norem, as well as art for sale by Bernard McKenna, who also plays in the house band, The Sincerelys.
The Adventureland Gallery hosts the Portland collection of Darryl Norem‘s landscapes, as well as an evolving set of pieces by resident artist Bernard McKenna. Guests artists occasionally show in the main room, and the walls continue to accrue a collection of live music posters as more Events are held at Adventureland Ballroom.
Darryl Norem (August 21, 1949 – July 16, 2012) was a Key Largo, Florida artist and painter whose fantastic landscapes were made of hand-cut materials which she painstakingly layered and arranged in three dimensions. More than just representations of space, her works fill actual space and let shadow and light play off of their construction.
From 1982 to 2011, she single-handedly produced thousands of unique works, including their frames, which were often made of recycled materials. Her landscapes adorn the walls of many private collections, as well as in hospitals, corporate headquarters, and a wide variety of spaces where they create windows to other worlds.
Her son Arias now holds over 80 of her remaining works at his home in Portland, many of which now sit in the permanent collection at Adventureland Gallery, and can be viewed during Events.
My childhood fascination with moving or traveling on a road to a new adventure is the seed for my current body of artwork. My art is a puzzle of shapes, forms, color, and textures methodically patchworked to create a landscape defining my life.
Using museumboard, foamboard, and/or wood, I create dimensional surfaces that I paint with acrylics. I draw with a utility knife and build dimension by layering the pieces. My expression in drawing is one of energy, movement, and whimsy. When enhanced by intense color and lively painting, the places created bring about unique recollections of earlier experiences. The tiled areas are my own hand-cut, painted, and laid ragboard pieces.
Horizons in the distance describe my wanderlust to travel. Pathways and thresholds direct my possibilities. The people I meet and the places I travel to create my relationships are experiences that, when pieced together, explain where I have been and who I have become. My hope is that my life journey will be filled with the unexpected and that there will always be yet another roadway for me to venture. The hills of my existence are here sliced and exposed for examination. In viewing my art, you will see what I am made of; being the sum total of all that I have lived.
