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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.That stands to reason, considering the complicated history of the 580-square-mile Hanford site. The Hanford Reach is a 51-mile section of the Columbia River, on the northeastern border of the area.As the official Hanford website notes, native tribes lived for centuries on the land, but they and others were ordered to evacuate in early 1943, when the federal government decided to locate portions of the Manhattan Project — the top-secret research project that produced the first atomic bombs — on the Washington state property where the communities of White Bluffs and Hanford were located.Artist Michael Brophy's "Reach: The Hanford Series" is on exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus, in Eugene.Images courtesy the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon; photography by Josie BrownEven after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and World War II ended, plutonium production continued at Hanford until 1987. What was left behind included radioactive and chemical waste, and major environmental clean-up projects.Brophy’s paintings — which are accompanied by copy providing context about what viewers are seeing — depict the land, the ghosts of buildings that once stood there, barren trees, the hulking B reactor (the first plutonium production reactor in the world), an array of vintage warning signs (“EVACUATE 1. When radiation alarm sounds, or 2. When advised by a radiation monitor”), and more.“There’s a bit of lure there with some beauty,” says Brophy, 65. “But there’s also a punch.”In 2017, Brophy was invited to visit the Hanford complex by a member of the organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility. Michael Brophy's "Reach: The Hanford Series" is on exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene.Images courtesy the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon; photography by Josie Brown“I really had not done much research on it,” Brophy says. “Other than what you kind of know, growing up here. I just sort of let the place roll over me. And then I started the series probably about three or four years later, I think. I let it marinate a bit, and came up with the idea of doing nine canvases because there are nine decommissioned reactors on site. And so that was the concept.“Brophy thought further about what he had seen and photographed at the site, following a 2023 trip to Rome. He made the connection between “the ruins of Rome, where you had one civilization sitting on top of another civilization,” with what had occurred at the Hanford site.“Reach: The Hanford Series” also relates to recurring themes in Brophy’s work, which, as he says, is often “an homage to the landscape of the Northwest, which I love.” Another theme is what Brophy calls “the Machine in the Garden, our intervention into the natural world,” elements that appear, for example, in Brophy paintings that depict clear-cut areas in Northwest forests.Asked what he hopes visitors to “Reach: The Hanford Series” may take away from the exhibit, Brophy says he doesn’t think much about that, since each viewer will have their own experience,Artist Michael Brophy is shown at his exhibit, "Reach: The Hanford Series," on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus, in Eugene.Images courtesy the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon; photography by Brian Davies“I guess I would hope people think about this site, and what this place is,” Brophy says. “It borders the (Columbia) river for 50 miles. It’s a very strange thing, to have such a pristine place, that’s so polluted and deadly.”“Reach: The Hanford Series” is on exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus through April 27.

Michael Brophy’s exhibit, "Reach: The Hanford Series," is on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon.