Past Exhibits

Echoes: A Century Survey
Paintings by Arnold Mesches
September - October, 2000

Echoes: A Century Survey was an exhibit presented in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA.) The paintings, drawings, collages, photographs and writings by critically acclaimed New York artist Arnold Mesches, who began his career in the l940's, was mounted simultaneously at OJM and in PNCA's Feldman Gallery and Swigert Commons.

Mesches’ work presents a survey of the last century based on world history and the artist’s own American childhood and life. A figurative painter, Arnold Mesches (American, born 1923) combines a collage-based esthetic with expressionist color and dynamic compositions in these powerful works that chronicle his experiences as well as the lives of his parents and grandparents.

Important to Mesches is the story of his family, particularly his parents and his Jewish heritage. Born in the Bronx, New York, Mesches and his family experienced firsthand some of the major events and changes of the twentieth century. Part of his subject matter includes themes of immigration, assimilation, and even a childhood memory of a trip to Coney Island. A series of paintings and drawings of his mother illuminate the complex relationship between mother and son, and old world and new world.

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Past Exhibits