Anybody planning to catch up on the current round of gallery shows in the days following Christmas, take note: Michael Brophy’s Here There Nowhere closes Saturday the 22 so the gallery can have their own holiday break.

Dedicating your artistic life to (mostly) realist paintings of the regional landscape is a bold move. Generally speaking, it’s one of the more non-avant garde subjects and approaches one could take in this day and age. But it’s evident that these are the paintings Brophy has to make; they’re not the results of calculated, market-based decisions that are responsible for so much tiresome, uninspired work that dull gallerists and thick-eyed collectors traffic in like enthusiastic baseball card junkies.

Brophy’s singleminded artistic focus on the Northwest landscape (and its intersections with its inhabitants) comes from a deeper place, and with years of refinement, his works have become one of the great visual novels of our region. Tomorrow is your last chance to catch the latest chapter.

As John Motley wrote, “The spaces he paints are hardly sites of unspoiled beauty; they are leveled by clearcutting and invaded by hikers and fishermen. In Here There Nowhere, Brophy continues to explore how the wilderness is tamed by its inhabitants. Thus freeways, not rivers, snake through arid prairies and mountains, while semi trucks, instead of fish or waterfowl, navigate their arterial paths.

Here There Nowhere is at Laura Russo, 805 NW 21st, and is open from 11 am-5 pm tomorrow. More images from the show after the jump.