ARTISTIC EXPRESSION. The work of Mark Perry is on display through June 24 at northeast Portland’s Guardino Gallery. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #23 (June 10, 2008), page 15.

By Ronault L.S. Catalani

Fate seems to have caught Hawai’i born and raised Portland import Mark Perry. Caught him, caught his attention, and of course caught his artistic expression. That’s what’s captured on Guardino Gallery’s walls in determinedly post-bourgeois northeast Alberta. Prints in relief and intaglio; images in earthy reds and greens, dank browns and bluesy blues.

Mr. Perry’s monthlong exhibit is an exploration of Fate — though he says he’s reluctant to imagine it a capitol ‘F’ word, insisting instead that our lives are not predetermined, that "tomorrow’s a new day. We can begin again," he says. "We can make it different or we can be the same."

Fate is in the title of many, if not most, of the artist’s print series on display. There’s "Fate — Can’t win them all," another is titled "Fate — Glory," another he calls "Fate — 7." And there are plenty more.

Mr. Perry layers print colors and textures and techniques not ordinarily attempted by artists in the same piece, so they’re likely to illicit visual and emotional responses not often experienced by viewers. The effect is deep. Each image catches your gaze, holds your imagination, maybe with the same adhesive, for the same reasons, that Fate is holding tight to this young artist.

A lot is going on in Mark Perry’s prints. A firm iconology seems to hold a solid central theme. Some of these feel like a church or temple window, some look like traditional Japanese family kamon (a family crest, such as a stylized lotus, crane, or horse). Others are simply pedestrian. "Hey, isn’t that a shower drain strainer thing?" I overheard a Last Thursday reveller ask his date. It is.

Behind each print’s dominant idea there’s energetic movement. Like life behind a wrought-iron fence or just behind a delicate shoji. In some prints, that activity looks like a city grid, others feel like electronic circuitry, in others still the backgrounds pulse like arterial networks. A lot’s going on back there. Behind Fate, or the idea of it.

Indeed, says Mr. Perry of his Guardino Gallery exhibit: "As I began thinking about what determines our fate, I got this idea that there’s too much to believe in one strict point of view. There are too many roads to get stuck taking one way all the time. Every single moment in life will occur just once. I believe our fate is made up as we go along."

Mark Perry’s prints will remain up on Guardino’s walls for two more weeks. Each is an original, each is an immediate emotional moment, that he says he cannot reproduce. Or reprint. His exhibit’s best work, as Fate would have it (in case you stop by during the gallery’s off hours) may well be the four large composites on the gallery’s southwest wall, those just inside their big front glass.

And there you have it: his art behind the cold glass window; the life beyond those staid icons.

The work of Mark Perry is on display through June 24 at the Guardino Gallery, located at 2939 N.E. Alberta Street in Portland. Gallery hours are 11:00am to 5:00pm on Tuesday, 11:00am to 6:00pm Wednesday through Saturday, and 11:00am to 4:00pm on Sunday. For more information, call (503) 281-9048 or visit <www.guardinogallery.com>.