Events listed occur throughout the month are free and open to all visitors unless otherwise specified.
SATURDAY 02.07.26
Chris Lael Larson: Lost LAKE | Carnation Contemporary
Lost Lake brings together photography, painting, and sculpture to explore and reimagine the landscape surrounding Lost Lake in Oregon’s Mt. Hood National Forest. The work emerges from a cyclical process that moves between time spent in the field and time in the studio, ultimately resolving into photographic and sculptural pieces.
I begin by walking the landscape, observing plant life, gathering materials, and taking photographs. In the studio, these elements are used to build temporary, altar-like constructions combining printed photographs, acrylic paint, shaped wood, and custom mirror elements. These arrangements are lit and photographed to compress space and destabilize depth.
Photographs are then painted on, re-photographed, or integrated into sculptural works alongside mirror and crystal elements. These reflective surfaces create subtle visual feedback loops — images reflecting images, light reflecting light — echoing the recursive systems found in nature and in my practice.
Through this layered process, the work challenges perception and invites viewers to slow down and look more closely, engaging with the shifting relationships between image, object, and material.
Chris Lael Larson (b. Ohio, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Portland, Oregon. Working across photography, painting, sculpture, and installation, Larson is known for dissolving the boundary between the photographic and the painterly, creating works defined by layered perspectives, vibrant color, and an emphasis on depth. His practice centers on constructing temporary, altar-like installations from photographs, paint, found objects, and natural elements, which he then captures in a hyperreal lighting style. These photographs often become canvases themselves, painted upon and reintegrated into new works alongside their original source materials
5 PM – 8 PM @ 8371 N Interstate Ave Portland, OR