Thirty!

Introducing...The Artists!
(in alphabetical order)

Alisha Wessler

My work emerges from a profound desire to depict imaginary worlds. Homespun yet mythic, the figures simultaneously evolve from and sustain indeterminate spaces where earth and atmosphere provide silent witness to the richness of interior life.

It is not important to me which particular story the viewer takes away with her. I am more interested in creating scenes that hint at narrative. My illustrations often elicit discomfiting feelings with their many subtle contradictions. Pretty yet strange, delicate yet morbid, surreal yet grounded in wombs and root systems - I want my images to compel participation.

My process is primarily intuitive, always stemming from the act of drawing in one form or another. The images unfold as psychological maps of secret passageways or unfamiliar dreamscapes, inviting open interpretations over any fixed narrative.

www.alishawessler.com

Anna Todaro

the Beautiful and Strange
I do not currently and may never fully understand the meanings behind my paintings. They are intuitive. I do know that with every piece I make, I am pushing my mind as far as I can into the unknown to bring back this raw material from as far as I can reach. It may all be my own mental garbage, it may be messages from ancient whales, it may be a mix of both. One thing is certain though, I will continue making more paintings and I am certain I will continue to improve as I go along.

Anna lives and works in her studio in Portland, Oregon, which is also the home of Portland's Shortest Walk In Art Gallery at only 3.5' high: the Core.

www.annatodaro.com
www.astarchild.etsy.com
www.myspace.com/ohdivine
www.corepdx.com

Brett Bowers

I take a very musical approach to my paintings. I attempt to create a structure in which nature's rhythmic patterns are synthesized and transformed into abstract compositions that reflect a musical subdivision of space.

The flat colors are juxtaposed for various changing visual effects. They are to challenge or echo each other, to support or oppose one another while lending to the sense of space. Improvisational lines cut through the composition with a feeling of lyricism and the textured build up of paint emulates time. . . When an object is stripped of the parameters that define it, lines, forms, and color rendered as forces are the only dynamic expression possible. It is my goal to create the object as experienced rather than in a static state.

www.brettbowers.com

Carrie Hardison

I am an emerging Portland artist and art educator. My interest in art ranges from painting, collage, ceramics, jewelry and fibers. I'm attracted to creating hidden dimensions and histories by incorporating richly textured papers,drawings and found objects. Ethereal and quiet ideas are presented in a manner to draw the viewer in deeper. No matter what it is I am painting or creating, I am attracted to organic shapes, elements and textures. I find the richest most decadent combination of colors and elements to create a piece that establishes a variety of flavors for the visual senses.

www.carriehardison.com

Chris Biegun

I'm offering viewers a chance to fill the void of a possible narrative. I do this by eliminating any contextual elements and strictly focus on one object. By doing this, the viewer only comes in contact with the object that is painted and what the object is painted on. This emphasizes the importance of the object and it creates a sense of intimacy.

Chris Burtch

There are experiences in our lives that, upon memory, bring a tickle to the back of the neck, or a wrinkle to the corners of the eyes. Stepping into the studio is one of those experiences. Catching that first glimpse of whatever piece is lying in wait, for another move toward its completion, another step before it comes alive and releases a life force of its very own, is enough to set the senses tingling.

My focus on living things, natural landscapes, and organic compositions are constant steps in the ever changing sand, as the dance of creation piles one step onto another. Each are reminders of my inner biologist, in a continual waltz with my artist within, spinning in a constant dance of creation.

No words that I have yet compiled in the short sweet years of my life can begin to express the essence of a natural creation, and its importance to this earth. Perhaps, by adding to it, my artistic creations, I find ways to give them my own wordless praise.

Cvita Mamic

With a mixture of spontaneity, imagery, line and color my paintings are alive with experiences and explorations from my travels abroad, my passion for nature's way and my nomadic lifestyle. They focus in on the small wonders that I come across, the places that leave unforgettable impressions and the people that affect and inspire me.

My style ranges from fluid spontaneous mark making combined with simplicity of form and color, to detailed image transfers from collected media and recycled objects. Working in the two styles allows me to play with the ideas of the duality between freedom and constraint in regards to expressing my thoughts or ideas with different processes.

My goal with each piece, is to extract the most simple form from the greater whole and explore both its simplicity and depth.

Elizabeth Schuppe

Color, line, shape, texture, and light are the media that express the emotion in my work. Rather than creating a recognizable object, I use the elements of painting itself to allow the story to unfold. There is no plan in my painting, yet there is process. I let a color, a line, a shadow dictate what comes next.

The purpose is to create expression and emotion strictly out of shape and color - completely abstract. My best works are the ones that just happen, when I allow myself to be surprised.

www.elizabethschuppe.com

Emily Katz

Fed creatively by her closeness to nature and sensitivity to beauty in all things, Emily Katz can’t remember a time when art wasn’t a daily part of her life. After attending Waldorf School in Portland and living in Italy as an inquisitive teenager, she spent 2 years in Baltimore at MICA honing her technical art skills before again succumbing to wanderlust that drove her again to Europe. On her return she moved back to Portland and co-founded a whimsical art clothing line called Bonnie Heart Clyde. 5 years later, Emily Katz now has 2 companies, a 4-piece band, and continues to show her fine art with solo and group shows around the country. Lately her work has drawn directly from her deep connection with gemstones. Her father is one of the worlds leaders in therapeutic gemstone medicine, and so growing up she always had her fingers in piles of gems.

www.emilykatz.com
www.love-menu.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/lovemenubyemilykatz

Erika Sears

Erika Lee Sears is a self-taught painter and illustrator with a lifetime of experience. Her passion for exploring new styles and original approaches is evident with what she creates; though keeping the subject matter to the point allows her to reach out to the audience.

Each piece is a complexity of life, and how we often hold on to the memories of beauty, simplicity and serenity. She will combine these feelings with a common theme or emphasis for a piece, and then let it evolve organically.

Her work would be best described as dynamic, explorative and effervescent as it often makes use of pointillism and a wide colorful palette to take the viewer from a dreamy landscape to the limits of the surreal. What she creates is an extension of herself; a visual personification of her own life journey in both the emotional and the metaphysical sense.

www.atinyrocket.com

Guenevere Schwien

My inspiration starts with motorcycles, and the freedom and excitement I feel while riding. I take hundreds of pictures of the motorcycles around me, whether it is one of mine, a friend‘s or at a show. I look for colors and reflections in the bike’s chrome and metal pieces. I’ll distort and modify these photos sometimes to the point of complete abstraction. This gives me the freedom I want in painting and parallels the freedom of riding a motorcycle. I want the paintings to be exciting and fun to look at. Complex and interesting use of color and shape allow me to use design in the compositions. With each new painting I give more attention to design and composition. This leads to endless possibilities and miles to go.

Guenevere grew up in Monterey, California. She attended Robert Louis Stevenson high school in Pebble Beach. From a very young age Guenevere knew she wanted to be an artist, and painter in particular. After high school she moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art University. She moved to Oakland her sophomore year and relied on public transportation to get to and from school and work in San Francisco. After college she moved to Portland, OR to pursue Graduate School and continue to produce exciting new work.

www.gueneveres.com

Jamee Linton

Jamee Linton, originally from Aiken, South Carolina, obtained her MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, where she also earned her BFA in
Illustration. Jamee has exhibited her work in a variety of venues in both the United States and
Europe, including Atlanta, New York, Paris, and London. Her work has received special attention in a number of publications, such as New American Paintings, Picture Perfect, by Stephanie Hoppen, the Atlanta Magazine, and the Oregon Home Magazine. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

The Urbanscape Paintings represent the commute of daily life and the need for travel and change. They are created with multiple layers of paint and other media until the desired look is achieved. I embrace and even encourage accidents because it is evidence of the experimental part of the process. The subconscious plays a major role in the creation of these paintings, this is achieved through repetition and working on a number of pieces simultaneously. These pieces are industrial and gritty yet there is a beautiful elegance to them.

www.jameelinton.com

Jennifer Mercede

Consistently amongst all my forms of creative expression, there is a reoccurring focus on the process. The process of making art. The process of life. The process of freeing your mind from any nagging critics, the ones (who for some odd reason) dont want you to succeed. EvER. My transcendental art speaks of the process of getting acquainted with your most authentic voice (or in my case voices) and clearing a path for that voice to shine.

Through painting, I explore the zen of letting attachments go (like the serendipitous way those colors blend together so perfectly, that now call to be painted over ah!) releasing fear of mistakes (there really is nO such thing) and experimenting with letting Little Jenni LaLa (the true artistic genius within me) be the leader and make all the executive decisions After all, she IS the genius, not me. Her intelligence guides me through an intimate relationship. A relationship that consists of gooey, dripping house paint, rapid scribbling markers, soft, sensitive lines kissed by colored pencil, and pens gauging into wood. I am passionately involved with lime green, unrefined circles and layer upon layer of yes this will work and gotta keep painting. Abstract compositions form intuitively as a result of this relationship, often integrating a free flow of text and an increasing use of recognizable objects. With deliberate subconscious, they reflect how I perceive the surrounding world.

www.jennifermercede.com

Jeremy Okai Davis

Jeremy Okai Davis responds through his art to the people and things he sees in daily life, both the eccentric and the mundane. He likes to have fun with his art and says never to take too much of what you see seriously. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and spent the first 26 years of his life there before relocating to Portland, Oregon in January of 2007. Since arriving he has continued his investigation in character choosing with his last two shows to focus on Women of the late 60’s and early 70’s in both his “Stripper Portraits” and “Catalog Ladies” Series’. He’s intrigued by the changing and recycling fashion trends and the stigmas that come along with them.

www.jeremyokaidavis.com
www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyokai/sets/72157594338275373/

Julia Skerry

Julia Skerry is a native of Bellingham, Washington, and has lived in Portland for the last year and a half. She studied art at Western Washington University and received a Bachelor’s degree in mixed- media art in 2004.

Julia’s work is often inspired by nature. She enjoys going for walks and collecting plant matter to incorporate in her collages and functional art. Whenever possible, Julia uses recycled materials in her work. She salvages old cupboard doors for her paintings, and recycled tiles for her handmade coasters. Julia participates in painting shows and art walks around Portland.

www.skerryart.blogspot.com

Kelly Neidiggity

I paint with oils on panel. I begin with drippy layers of thinned paint, usually bright shades of yellow. In places the paint will bead up and form interesting patterns. I then apply thick lines of opaque paint. Sometimes the lines overlap, sometimes they just miss each other and allow the under painting to show through. I add perspective to my line patterns, and this adds movement. My paintings resemble the landscapes you would see when you are driving fast in a car. My pallet is derived from colors that evoke memories of places I have been or toys I’ve had as a child. My memories can be vague or vanish quickly and sometimes the only thing I have left is a color. I see a connection between my memories and these fleeting landscapes I create. One thing that keeps me drawn to my memories is the feeling of nostalgia. I know a painting is finished when I can look at it and be reminded of another place and time

www.kelcan.biz

Laura James

I am inspired by the process of creativity. Compelled to move forward, and push boundaries I live and work way outside the box.

Glass is both a science and an art, a combination I find most intriguing. Experimentation and improvisation are key, creating scientific challenges to the artistic process and vice versa. The transparent quality; the depth of a piece, working in different layers, anticipating the light that reflects through those layers brings me back again and again.

The organic process that emerges from incorporating paintings and kilnformed
glass is filled with endless possibilities.

I delight in the unknown.

www.laurajamesdesigns.com

Lynn Yarne

Lynn Yarne grew up in Portland, OR. and has moved away and came back at least a few times. She graduated from the Printmaking department at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, which was too cold and made her come back to the west coast. An intense craving for travel combined with a nostalgia for home has lead her interests into imaginary or hypothetical places and creating the language to describe them. Other interests include: things felt that can't be described, things known that are best left unexplained, unexplainable feelings of longing or attachment, an unexplainable sense of loss, animals, and wonder.

http://users.easystreet.com/yarne/

Mark James Gunderson

It is hard to explain to people what it is I paint, and the easiest explanation is to show them a picture, but I'll try. These are childlike characters, sometimes illustrating my childhood and conveying my thoughts in everyday life. I used to hate drawing in realism, but knew that I had to make myself do it to get the results that I wanted, and so there are a number of animal drawings/paintings that are a background to the rest of the painting. I love patterns and I love color so I try to use them regularly. I often think about C.S. Lewis' writings and other children's books like Where the Wild Things Are and I want to create a world of my own in my art.

I was very influenced by Jean Michel Basquiat and later by the art produced by the graffiti and skate culture along with their use of found objects and unprofessional ways of showing their work. I realized that I was doing similar things in my own work and wanted to continue doing this. Some of my last shows have been a collage of all the work within the seriesÕ which was done on newspaper, old wood, maps, books, record albums, cigarette boxes, etc. What is significant for me in this new body of work is that I wanted to produce it in the Ôart schoolÕ fashion of oil paint on stretched, frame canvases.

Some artists that have influenced my work and especially this new work are Ben Shahn, Jeffrey Harris, Sandy Gunderson and Marc Chagal because of their straightforwardness in their work, and their ability to make more than just fine art.

www.flickr.com/photos/markjamesgunderson

Marshall Leggett

Marshall Leggett is an artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. Like many people, Marshall drew, doodled, and painted a lot as a kid. By the time he reached High School he was designing and illustrating T-Shirts and Album covers for local bands in his home town of Boulder, Colorado. This grew into a small-time design and illustration business that included tattoo design, nationally-distributed silkscreened T-Shirts, and sales of original pieces. His early work was largely detailed and naturalistic, but has grown increasingly abstracted over time.

Marshall has been working full time as a graphic designer and hasn't sought a showing in over a decade. A brief mention in Sunset Magazine in Spring 2008 led to inquiries about Marshall's paintings which in turn spurred him to begin actively showing once again. Most of Marshall's recent work is heavily inspired by the original waves of Modernists and Late Modernists as well as the more contemporary Pop and Cartoon Surrealists.

www.marshallleggett.com

Melissa Wenzel

Melissa Wenzel is a local artist who has been painting and drawing for over 15 years. Recently relocated to the Northwest, Melissa was born and raised in Northern California. She studied art formally at UC Berkeley, where she was mentored by Californian artists such as Jane Rosen, Mary O'Neal, Squeak Carnwath and Wendy Sussman. Her most recent work is heavily influenced by her current occupation as a full time medical student. Using a variety of materials, Melissa's work combines elements of anatomy, nature, and personal narrative.

www.mesart.com/mwenzel

Michael McGovern

The environments and people that have surrounded my life inform the art I create. My work is about constructing autobiographical images that explore the ghosts of my past. I am interested in how both personal and cultural histories have profoundly affected my visual language. I compose memorials to the intangible memories of my past. By visually recording impressions of specific times, places, and events in my life I am preserving memories that seem to fade with each passing year. My work calls upon the repetitive nature of photography and printmaking to create a network of reoccurring images that I can meditate on to help search for a truth. I use a lexicon of images that relate to specific events in my history. Repeated images of bridges, birds, trains, war, urban landscapes, and old family portraits find their way into my work lending themselves to an unfolding narrative. All these images carry a personal biography, but also carry the weight of their own metaphors helping to furnish an ever-growing personal narrative.

www.mempdx77.com

Randall Tipton

My solution to just about anything and everything is to go outside. Since I was a kid, I`ve just wanted to sit on the porch, lie in the grass, or walk in the woods and look at what`s before me. I`m obsessed with landscapes. Before painting one, I`ll study closely a view or subject. Either I`ll do a quick drawing or take a photograph to keep the impression alive. In the studio, the painting evolves in a trial and error process. Though the original experience is important, once I begin a painting, the process has it`s own life. I`ll make countless decisions and experiments trying to get it "right". With tenacity and luck, I`ll arrive at something interesting, in the spirit of the place.

www.thinkingfree.net

Samantha Hodgson

Nobody owns art. And yet we try, so hard, to believe that we can. Art is a moment in time, and the sum of all moments leading up to it. It is everything the artist is, in the most holistic way possible---- it can, in and of itself, sum up everything the artist has seen and not noticed, felt without acknowledgment, wished without pursuit, and experienced. To be all of this, and yet be its own life form with energy that does not capture fully nor translate in a photograph, is a mystery that I have fallen in love with.

http://web.mac.com/sfhodgson/samricca/

Sarah Goodnough

Contemporary artist, Sarah Goodnough, is endlessly inspired by the human spirit and the splendor of nature. She lives in Oregon, both in the lively city of Portland, and the quaint coastal town of Astoria. She finds this dichotomy between the vibrance and culture of the big city, and scenic beauty and friendliness of a small town, to be a great balance for her artistic imagination.

Goodnough’s work celebrates life. Her artistic style is expressive, using vibrant color, strong composition, and layered texture. She paints abstracted viewscapes, pulling real life scenes into redefined realities of wonder.

Goodnough creates in a variety of mediums; painting in oils, acrylics and watercolor. She also works with pastels, blockprints, mosaics, and photography. She frequently uses photography taken from her daily walks and world travels as reference and inspiration for her paintings. She enjoys combining the texture, line and form captured from life and her photos to create new and different realities in paint and mixed media. By playing with color, pattern, composition and texture, she produces vibrant and unique work that is sensitive to mood and emotion.

www.sarahgoodnough.com

Seth Neefus

Sometimes I feel creating art is like a dance that carries through the night and into the morning or even days on end with no control. Other times I feel as though I have just opened my eyes for the first time and a world is created right before me of peacefulness and harmony between man and nature. In both cases I am left with more of an understanding of life and how amazing it is to be aware of how little I am in so many ways.

www.sethneefus.com
www.togethergallery.com
www.fartminusf.com

Tamara English

My Most recent body of work explores the meeting place between the imagined and what becomes manifest in the physical world. Using the metaphor of the garden, these oil paintings illuminating this journey of an idea from imagination to actuality. All ideas and promise begin within and are brought forth into the physical world through intention and action. These paintings ask viewers to explore the idea of discovering and bringing forth one’s own ideas and wishes into the physical world. Through cultivating what is within, one is able to create the highest vision for his or her life, and in doing so, create the possibility of transformation for oneself and for the world as a whole.

Tamara English lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Her paintings have been
exhibited throughout Oregon, including a recent solo exhibition at The Art Institute of Portland. Tamara’s paintings have been commissioned by businesses and individuals in the United States and are collected internationally. In addition to being a painter, Tamara's background includes fine art, art history, psychology, physics, and a commitment to sustainability and environmental awareness. Tamara also facilitates individual sessions and classes that focus on ways to move through doubts and fears, so we are able to express the highest vision for our lives. With the view that we are all the artists of our own lives, she supports individuals and groups in developing creativity to enrich work, relationships, health, artistic endeavors, and personal exploration. She is currently writing a book about the experience of being a professional artist, with the intention of inspiring artists in their careers.

http://www.tamaraenglishstudio.com

Terrence Gasca

I am a native Oregonian who has experienced living in all of the state’s geographical regions. Having lived in a few small towns, I can appreciate their charms and rural settings, but prefer the lifestyle of an urban environment such as my current home, Portland. Without being too large, this city has everything I need to be happy and inspired to make art.

Within my art, I find a lot of pleasure in trying to capture the urban surroundings. Whether it’s a busy street corner, the side of a building, or traffic passing by, these settings present themselves in so many different ways. Day or night, the everyday environment offers so much opportunity in the areas of color, light, and design. What is most meaningful to me is how the combination and manipulation of these elements can so easily change and influence our moods and perceptions of something so ordinary.I think one of the most difficult things I find as a painter is to set limitations by means of subject matter, style, or forms of expression. One of my most respected instructors at The Academy, Craig Nelson, always encouraged students to “…explore various subjects... Explore, explore, explore!” Whether I’m working on a cityscape, a figurative painting or a nature study, breaking limitations and becoming more expressive is something I constantly work towards. Learning and practicing new ways of expression is the challenge that keeps me passionate about art.

www.terrencegasca.com

Theresa Andreas-O'Leary

Portland, Oregon native, Theresa Andreas-O'Leary is a self taught painter and muralist. She has worked in all paint media, but has focused on acrylics for its vibrant color and translucency. Many of her compositions reflect the scenes found while living in Europe and South Africa. She returned to Lake Oswego in 2000 and set up Andreas Studios, where she paints and displays her work. In 2006, she received the Chronicle Public Art Award for her composition, "Vine Light", which now hangs in Lake Oswego's City Hall Building. "I brush my paint into light circles, leading you through my work as I see the path form. Light used as an element, enhances the season, time and space of my compositions. I want the viewer to see my thoughts and then, interpret the painting with their own feelings. I hope my work evokes emotion and connection to your inner child. Monet's quote best describes how I want to lead you through my work: "Put your hand in mine and let us help one another to see things better." It is through the brush, I remain."

www.andreasartstudio.com

Will Bruno

William Leake Bruno's art explores the relationship between the painting tradition and the use of digital photography for self expression and online personal profiles. Though based out of Portland, OR, Will travels throughout the states, and recently returned from a five month trip to South America, while maintaining a blog of drawings and paintings.

www.wlbimagery.com
www.wlbimagery.blogspot.com

Zach Tobias

Zach Tobias rolled out of his Northern Californian kelp bed, dropped out of photo school in order to avoid the oncoming digital tide, adopted a dog as his best friend, and hightailed it to Portland OR where he rekindled his love with a paint brush. He has shown up and down the west coast from San Diego to Vancouver BC with upcoming exhibitions ranging as far as Brooklyn and Washington DC.

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