Creative Alchemy: Between Dreams and Reality

Imperfecta proudly presents Creative Alchemy: Between Dreams and Reality (Sept 3-26) -- an exhibition featuring Oregon artists Steve Eichenberger and Jacquline Hurlbert.
Full-time artists for three decades, Steve and Jacquline transform raw, stubborn materials into forms that feel startlingly alive. Creative Alchemy is their declaration that art is not decoration but transformation:the ancient act of turning inanimate materials into beings that meet the viewer with presence, attitude… even sentience. This exhibition brings two fiercely individual practices into one charged space, where matter becomes meaning and the boundary between dreams and reality thins.
Steve works with materials that don't yield easily. Steel is struck, shaped, and tempered by pressure and heat; clay is coaxed into forms that feel unearthed rather than designed. Resulting artworks feel less like objects and more like forged companions, guardians, confidants — they stand with someone rather than simply stand before them.
Jacquline's sculptures ignite an alchemy driven by narrative, wit, and psychological voltage. Her figures confront, question, delight and reveal, wielding symbolic objects, and celebrating the shadow side. Her work is bold, mischievous, and emotionally incisive, distilling contradictions into forms that feel dreamlike yet fiercely real. Humor and shadow coexist; innocence and grit collide; clarity and wildness embrace.
Creative Alchemy invites viewers to stand among sculptures that feel awake and imbued with intention, and to experience how inert materials can become companions in one's inner universe. These pieces offer presence, solidarity, strength, and the reminder that imagination is a force powerful enough to turn the intangible into artifacts that stand eye‑to‑eye with reality.
Opening Reception: September 3, 5-8pm
Gallery Location: 809 NW Flanders st, Portland OR
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm – EXCEPT first Wednesdays (closed) and first Thursdays (open 5-8pm only).
About the artists
Steve Eichenberger has been a full-time Oregon artist since 1995, fluent in several media and voraciously experimenting. As he explains, "I perceive my "inner artist" as a separate, mysterious entity with boundless energy that wanders mostly hidden in the recesses of my mind, and regards me as simply the "meat person" to carry out its wishes."
Jacquline Hurlbert is obsessed with layering her canvas with history. The first painting becomes the backbone of the story, an original story that remains as she layers another painting on top of it and then another. It's this development of history that so intrigues and pushes her forward to the next layer. Her paintings mimic her personal process of growth and renewal.
About Imperfecta Art & Design Gallery
imperfecta is an art & design gallery focused on elevating the work and voices of women artists and minority creatives. http://www.imperfecta.xyz