OPENING RECEPTION
FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2025
5-8 PM

ON VIEW
MAY 9 - JUNE 7, 2025

FOR INQUIRES
Please contact hello@chefasprojects.com

PRESS

PORTLAND MONTHLY

WILLAMETTE WEEK

Above Image: Michael Novak

Chefas Projects is delighted to present Love Notes from the Lurker, a series of new works by gallery artist Jess Ackerman. Reflecting themes of observation, introspection, and reframing one’s perspective, Love Notes from the Lurker is like a gift from the shadows – a reminder of things being connected and taken care of, even if they go unseen.

With this new series, Ackerman further refines their unique approach with vignette-like compositions that contemplative reflection on the things around them, moving into a slightly darker palette than before. Continuing to draw visual inspiration from vintage design motifs and  quilt-like patterns, Love Notes from the Lurker presents canvases of long-tendriled plants growing wildly and spiraling freely under the cover of the night sky and the stars that fill it. 

Love Notes from the Lurker is an ode to meditative observation of both the self and of one’s surroundings – akin to wandering around in the middle of the night to peer into different neighbors’ gardens. “I’ve felt more like an observer in other lives than myself living my own,” reflects Ackerman. Amidst glimpses of new spring growth after a long winter, recurring motifs of weeds emerge as unlikely teachers: unwelcome guests that, like intrusive thoughts, ground us in the richness of life’s undercurrents. “Like how weeds are necessary for biodiversity,” Ackerman reminds us, “working through or facing darkness is beneficial for personal calm and long term nourishment.”

The opening reception for Love Notes from the Lurker will take place at Chefas Projects on Friday, May 9, 2025, from 5-8 pm. Located in Portland, Oregon, at 134 SE Taylor Street on the first floor of the Taylor Works building, Chefas Projects invites the public to explore this unique exhibition, which will be on view through June 7, 2025.

Through techniques learned from patchworking and quilting paired with the artist’s style of color blocking, Jess Ackerman (b. 1990) utilizes these skills in their paintings as a form of storytelling. They weave past memories of self and totems found in the landscape of home in Northern California as an ultimate journey to healing. Tables become conduits for nourishment, fruits and vessels become channels for mental, spiritual, and emotional sustenance, and motorcycles and symbols of technology act as nods to the budding tech industry of the 80s and 90s. Ackerman currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

ARTWORK

INSTALLATION IMAGES

© CHEFAS PROJECTS
Photo credit: Mario Gallucci