Julia Gardner creates her mixed media artwork with resin -- an extremely tricky, often unpredictable medium. Building up her artwork from either clear flat molded resin or wood panels Julia creates “windows” in which she layers her photos with mixed media (ink, oil pastel, metallic tape, wire, etc.) in multiple layers of resin. Each layer has to be created with precise temperature and humidity conditions to create artwork that results in the almost glass-like final piece. Her most recent Portland Cityscape series includes signature landmarks that speak to the history of the city: old theaters, the signs and architecture of motels, bars and other long-standing Portland businesses, local sculptures and more.

Chris Giffin produces one of kind objects from recycled and found materials. She uses a cold construction method, assembling all her pieces with nuts and bolts, wire, nails, etc. The ingredients in each piece are chosen for their beauty, mystery or whimsical spirit. The stories in these old found objects come together to form a new community in each piece of work and a new story is told.

Chris Haberman's wonderfully colorful paintings are like complex visual poems, with subjects sometimes jaded, sometimes exuberant, with a layered style that invokes urban chaos. They seem to always include text.  Words are everywhere.  His work is inspired by comic books, mythology, the region and pop culture.  His artwork is created on found (post-consumer materials) objects, given or found on the streets and alleyways of Portland, OR.  He paints on anything: from bits of scrap word to CD cases.

Mar Goman’s work is eccentric and unique and does not fit easily into any particular category. The use of a wide variety of media (from buttons and fabric to images transferred to cloth and found objects) is part of her visual richness.  Her “Junk Necklaces” include crackerjack prizes, dominos, watch parts and an assortment of cast-offs that are fun for the eye.

Scot Cameron-Bell’s ceramic works are wild and colorful.  Her pots are decorative and made playful by their richly dressed-up surface. She throws; then alters, pokes and pushes the vases to exaggerate and give them character.  Color is essential and gives them life. Birds are evident everywhere, both in shape and decoration.   She creates birds on cups, pedestals and standing alone. She calls them her giggles. There is exuberance to her work and a joy that makes itself felt.

Jamee Linton is a landscape painter who specializes in both rural and urban scenes.  She translates the landscape into scenes that focus on color, balance, and composition. Her paintings are created in a variety of sizes in both oil and acrylic on either panel or canvas. She works from a combination of memory and multiple reference photos in order to create an image that focuses on her emotional response to the landscape and captures the essence of an area over an exact replication of a scene.

Gabriel Fernandez paints with oil on canvas. Fernandez continues to explore interior spaces.  His initial interest in a painting is to merge still life and landscape imagery into an interior space.  His next level of interest is how the reality of the space relates to the abstract.  Many of his compositions suggest a minimalist framework of abstract expressionism; though they don’t depart from the traditional methods he has been trained in.  He explores the relationships between mood and light, realism and the narrative with the abstract, and paint with the process. 

Kim Murton’s ceramic sculptures blur the line between abstract and figurative.  Color and pattern and the surface of the clay are all important aspects of her work. And of course, humor and wit are ever present.  Murton is interested in repetition and the subtle differences that can happen.  Murton coils and pinches terra cotta clay, working from the bottom up and in profile. The pieces are painted with colored slip and clear glazed.

Laurie and Dan Hennig let the clay process reflect their experiences and ideas to create ceramic objects. They have been affected by the discovery of pottery shards along the beaches of the Mediterranean, on the mesas of the Southwest U.S, and in caves of Central America. They returned to the studio to incorporate these impressions.  Soon new rocky forms attracted creatures. The appearance of Iguanas, desert rats, turtles and other creatures signals the fresh respect that Laurie and Dan feel for the other beings that inhabit this planet, even if ever so precariously.  

Iver & Jennifer Hennig continually work to transform clay beyond its boundaries. Their stoneware pieces are created individually to have both the functionality of pottery and the artistic expression of sculpture. The collaborative body of work has a representational element as it plays with natural forms. A respect for clay and a sense of enjoyment and humor can be found with their one-of-a-kind pieces. 

Nicole Rawlins medium is intaglio printmaking.  Using a variety of techniques, including:  etching, mezzotints, spit bite, drypoint, roulette, soft ground and ink lift she achieves a rich and lush result.  Her prints are small and intimate, but pack a powerful punch.  We’ve included several series here.  Some offered framed and some unframed.