Surplus Space was an alternative, artist run project space located inside a small Portland, Oregon home. Surplus Space offered interdisciplinary artists an opportunity to produce and show work in direct dialogue with currently unfolding issues of social and political significance.
We consider Surplus Space to be an alternative space based on the idea of a model-home. Similar to how a display home demonstrates layout and livable space, our model-home demonstrates how each room within a house has the potential to become an exhibition space. With five distinct areas of curation we were able to demonstrate how to create an environment conducive for exhibitions and day-to-day living. Surplus had a white box, a black box video installation space in the garage, an outdoor performance/installation space, a parlor where 2D and sculptural works were exhibited, and we also utilized the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway for programming. Surplus Space’s co-founder and director, Gabe Flores, lived in the house and slept in a lofted bed (the hovel) in our parlor. Flores’ residence in the home emphasized the live/work aspect of the project. We hope to of added to Portland’s well-documented history of home-based exhibition spaces in garages, living rooms, closets, basements, sheds, back yards, etc.
Our first year of programming was curated by Surplus' co-Founder, Tabitha Nikolai, and to continue to challenge the space’s curatorial programming, we invited a new guest curator each month of our 2015 season.
Surplus Space Team
Surplus Space was created and sustained by a devoted team of volunteers who helped to create a vibrant exhibition project.
Gabe Flores (co-Founder) is an artist/curator living in Portland, OR. His work often deals with his reflections on identity-based ideologies and personal narrative. Flores artistic practice is relationally based and thinks of his projects as exploration in sociology and political theory. He was the curator/director of Place, a 4000 sqft installation-based gallery on the top floor of Pioneer Place Mall, which ran from June 2010 to March 2014.
gabeflores.com
Tabitha Nikolai (co-Founder) is a visual artist, writer, and curator based in Portland, Oregon. She is the Gallery Coordinator for Portland State University, as well as the co-founder of Compliance Division, and Surplus Space, independent project spaces in Portland. She has an MFA in Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art where she also teaches in the Media Arts department. Her work is concerned with the implications and intersections of digital technologies, capitalism, fantasy, the occult, and net-based subcultures. She holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah, where she also acted as Dungeon Master.
petra fortes-schramm is an interdisciplinary artist and toymaker based in Soledad, CA. The majority of Petra’s work explores their relation to identity and power, and utilizes humor and kitsch to engage audiences. Petra holds a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and an MA from Reed College.
maria-petra.com
Trace Harris was originally from Morro Bay, Ca. In 2006, he received his A.A. from Cuesta College in two-dimensional arts with a focus in electronic and new media. He moved to Portland In 2008 and began attending Portland State University in 2010. He is a community minded volunteer and worked at Place from 2011 till Its closing, and currently at Surplus Space. In artistic exploration the themes he is most interested in are questions that revolve around identity, the body, systems, access, and entropy.
Maggie Heath is a Portland artist, who focuses on figurative and theatrical sculptural installations, with the use of labor-intensive processes. While growing up in Minnesota, Heath was a part of Ballet Minnesota’s academy, which continues to inform her interest in the figure and the settings that surround the body. Heath is currently finishing her BFA at Portland State University, and was awarded an honorable mention in International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award Program for 2014. Her work has shown at various spaces in Portland, including Timeshare Gallery, MK Gallery, PCC Casacde Gallery, and as part of a group project for the Portland’s Shine a Light at the Portland Art Museum.
maggie-heath.com
Katie Holden is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, OR. She received her BFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is currently a MFA candidate for Portland State University's Contemporary Art Practice program.
katieholden.us
Emily Wobb is a naive patriot whose performances discuss where integrity lies within American culture. Primarily using spectacle, Wobb composes events where vehicles or machinery interact with sculptures and installations to destroy symbols of comfort. After finishing her undergraduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art in 2013, Wobb traveled to Bakersfield, CA, to assist Jesse Sugarmann with his We Build Excitement film and was inspired to make the move to Portland.
emilywobb.com
Michell Wood graduated with a BFA from Portland State University. was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Besides making art and working with children, she enjoys spending time outside; skating in the city, surfing at the beach, reading, dancing, climbing trees, and growing vegetables, herbs, and native plants for food and to provide year-round habitat for other species at home.
Ryan Woodring makes work from the vantage point of a theme-park rider stuck aboard a stalled ride. Woodring sources amateur video recordings to find and extrude moments of mechanical failure that return narrative agency to these lens-toting tourists. The broken ride serves as symbolic rupture, splintering the one-track narrative of modernity into thousands of uncertain, but ultimately more personal vignettes. Woodring graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA with a focus on Electronic and Time-Base and a BA in French and Francophone studies. Currently, he's directing Prequel Professional Development Program for Emerging Artists, which he also founded.
ryanwoodring.com
Founded in 2013 by Gabe Flores and Tabitha Nikolai.
Amassing Surplus
Address: 3726 NE 7th Ave, Portland, OR 97212
We consider Surplus Space to be an alternative space based on the idea of a model-home. Similar to how a display home demonstrates layout and livable space, our model-home demonstrates how each room within a house has the potential to become an exhibition space. With five distinct areas of curation we were able to demonstrate how to create an environment conducive for exhibitions and day-to-day living. Surplus had a white box, a black box video installation space in the garage, an outdoor performance/installation space, a parlor where 2D and sculptural works were exhibited, and we also utilized the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway for programming. Surplus Space’s co-founder and director, Gabe Flores, lived in the house and slept in a lofted bed (the hovel) in our parlor. Flores’ residence in the home emphasized the live/work aspect of the project. We hope to of added to Portland’s well-documented history of home-based exhibition spaces in garages, living rooms, closets, basements, sheds, back yards, etc.
Our first year of programming was curated by Surplus' co-Founder, Tabitha Nikolai, and to continue to challenge the space’s curatorial programming, we invited a new guest curator each month of our 2015 season.
Surplus Space Team
Surplus Space was created and sustained by a devoted team of volunteers who helped to create a vibrant exhibition project.
Gabe Flores (co-Founder) is an artist/curator living in Portland, OR. His work often deals with his reflections on identity-based ideologies and personal narrative. Flores artistic practice is relationally based and thinks of his projects as exploration in sociology and political theory. He was the curator/director of Place, a 4000 sqft installation-based gallery on the top floor of Pioneer Place Mall, which ran from June 2010 to March 2014.
gabeflores.com
Tabitha Nikolai (co-Founder) is a visual artist, writer, and curator based in Portland, Oregon. She is the Gallery Coordinator for Portland State University, as well as the co-founder of Compliance Division, and Surplus Space, independent project spaces in Portland. She has an MFA in Visual Studies from the Pacific Northwest College of Art where she also teaches in the Media Arts department. Her work is concerned with the implications and intersections of digital technologies, capitalism, fantasy, the occult, and net-based subcultures. She holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah, where she also acted as Dungeon Master.
petra fortes-schramm is an interdisciplinary artist and toymaker based in Soledad, CA. The majority of Petra’s work explores their relation to identity and power, and utilizes humor and kitsch to engage audiences. Petra holds a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and an MA from Reed College.
maria-petra.com
Trace Harris was originally from Morro Bay, Ca. In 2006, he received his A.A. from Cuesta College in two-dimensional arts with a focus in electronic and new media. He moved to Portland In 2008 and began attending Portland State University in 2010. He is a community minded volunteer and worked at Place from 2011 till Its closing, and currently at Surplus Space. In artistic exploration the themes he is most interested in are questions that revolve around identity, the body, systems, access, and entropy.
Maggie Heath is a Portland artist, who focuses on figurative and theatrical sculptural installations, with the use of labor-intensive processes. While growing up in Minnesota, Heath was a part of Ballet Minnesota’s academy, which continues to inform her interest in the figure and the settings that surround the body. Heath is currently finishing her BFA at Portland State University, and was awarded an honorable mention in International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award Program for 2014. Her work has shown at various spaces in Portland, including Timeshare Gallery, MK Gallery, PCC Casacde Gallery, and as part of a group project for the Portland’s Shine a Light at the Portland Art Museum.
maggie-heath.com
Katie Holden is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, OR. She received her BFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is currently a MFA candidate for Portland State University's Contemporary Art Practice program.
katieholden.us
Emily Wobb is a naive patriot whose performances discuss where integrity lies within American culture. Primarily using spectacle, Wobb composes events where vehicles or machinery interact with sculptures and installations to destroy symbols of comfort. After finishing her undergraduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art in 2013, Wobb traveled to Bakersfield, CA, to assist Jesse Sugarmann with his We Build Excitement film and was inspired to make the move to Portland.
emilywobb.com
Michell Wood graduated with a BFA from Portland State University. was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Besides making art and working with children, she enjoys spending time outside; skating in the city, surfing at the beach, reading, dancing, climbing trees, and growing vegetables, herbs, and native plants for food and to provide year-round habitat for other species at home.
Ryan Woodring makes work from the vantage point of a theme-park rider stuck aboard a stalled ride. Woodring sources amateur video recordings to find and extrude moments of mechanical failure that return narrative agency to these lens-toting tourists. The broken ride serves as symbolic rupture, splintering the one-track narrative of modernity into thousands of uncertain, but ultimately more personal vignettes. Woodring graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA with a focus on Electronic and Time-Base and a BA in French and Francophone studies. Currently, he's directing Prequel Professional Development Program for Emerging Artists, which he also founded.
ryanwoodring.com
Founded in 2013 by Gabe Flores and Tabitha Nikolai.
Amassing Surplus
Address: 3726 NE 7th Ave, Portland, OR 97212
