Michael Brophy has earned a reputation as one of the most distinctive artists in the region, known for his meticulously rendered paintings that capture the beauty of the Pacific Northwest landscape while reflecting, as he says in an artist’s statement, “the interconnectedness of human, natural, and cultural histories — the subtle, often violent interplay between humans and the planet.”
Those complex elements are powerfully woven into Brophy’s current exhibition, “Reach: The Hanford Series,” on display through April 27 at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon Campus.
Nine large-scale paintings — a number that relates to the nine nuclear reactors located at the decommissioned nuclear production complex at Hanford, Washington — are both visually powerful and deeply thought-provoking…