Johansson Projects presents Back Channels featuring Evan B. Harris + Alisha Wessler July 3, 2009

Johansson Projects presents Back Channels. Feast your eyes on happy endings sprouting unhappy beginnings which warp into peculiar somewheres in-between. Evan B. Harris pumps steampunk pomp into two-dimensional curiosity cabinets. After brushing, beating and sanding acrylics, Harris weaves spindly tales of wandering seafarers, tattooed mermen, and fanciful fowls. His neo-Victorian dreamscapes revisit the childish itches we were warned to forget. Alisha Wessler crafts capillary hammocks of mother nature’s whimsies. Caped sirens and Russian dolls are unearthed among etched labyrinths of moss whispers. For Back Channels, Wessler has constructed a hand-sewn cave, swallowing the aesthetic of the real in one generous gulp.

Growing up without a television in the backwoods of Oregon, Evan dove into the recesses of his own imagination, where he lives to this day. Evan B Harris is a self-taught, Portland-based artist who has exhibited his work in both solo and group shows, nationally as well as abroad. Alisha Wessler received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and the range of her work includes otherworldly installation, soft sculpture and mythical illustration. Currently she lives and works in Portland, Oregon and has shown her work in galleries nationally and internationally