Artists

David Andersen was born in Sacramento, CA. He received his undergraduate degree in ceramics from the University of California, Davis, CA., and an MFA from the University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. His art was always socially charged - a stream of consciousness narrative where he told a story by combining loosely related ideas, components and language. His pieces are both familiar/ambiguous, humorous/serious. His intent was to create work that moved viewers to question, ponder and sometimes chuckle. David passed away in Salem, OR, in 2017.

Paul Meuse is a self-taught artist based in Salem, OR. His paintings utilize everyday materials in combination with color and line to create work that explores the human experience. He is particularly interested in finding unique ways to explore and process chaos, mystery, and emotion through his paintings. As an abstract painter, he often works multidimensionally on uneven surfaces as a means of challenging his own perspectives on art, nature, and humanity.

 Zachary McRae was born in Plant City, Florida. He is self-taught and uses intuitive, automatic processes to generate large-scale abstract oil and acrylic paintings. Compelled to make art from an early age, it wasn’t until after suffering through a minor traumatic brain injury in 2014 that he began to take his creative passion more seriously. “I consider the act of painting sacred, and give my work ample time to develop, layering and scrutinizing each aspect as it arises. My paintings are containers for the experiences that I have in the studio. They represent the fused workings of my mind and body during the weeks, months and years that I spend producing them.” 

Dayna Collins is an energetic and enthusiastic abstract painter. She loves experimenting with texture, layers, and color, likening her paintings to going on an archaeological dig. Dayna is also a mixed media artist and an avid collector/junker, energized by hunting for materials to use in her found object assemblage art or in her Salvage Collages. She hyperventilates when she discovers a rusty piece of metal or a tattered, disintegrating book. Dayna uses these tired, worn out objects to create vignettes that tell a new story. 

Monte was born and raised in Salem. She received her B.S. at Western Oregon State University, Monmouth, Oregon and her M.F.A. at Washington State University, Pullman, WA. “My painting represents a paradox in light and shadow, fire and water, cold and hot, life and death. I am concerned with energies that illuminate and emanate in the natural world. My imagery is a fusion of observation and imagination. The light in the paintings represents energy that emanates out from the center of the canvas. Light and energy are the ground in my painting. 

 Seth is a painter, actor, writer and director. Originally from California, he has made Salem his home and is truly immersed in local arts! When you view his large-scale abstract paintings they may seem simplistic, but you fall into the colors and find imagery that you may not have seen at first glance. “The last few years have been a kaleidoscope of feelings, stories, emotions, victories and defeats. I wanted to explore the tension between these with colors and shapes on canvas. I’ve tried to capture the depth of these stories and tensions with layering and scraping of paint and lines that we want to be straight and solid, but are not. Sometimes we find that the foundation is cracked.”

Sarah was born and raised in Maryland and Pennsylvania. She has been a resident of Eugene, Oregon, for over 20 years. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a BA in Fine Art. Sarah is primarily an oil painter working in a highly detailed, classical realist style, with a focus on still life painting. The interaction and relationship between humankind and the natural world is an ongoing theme in her works and she often chooses non-traditional, curious, and unexpected subjects for her paintings.

Heather moved to Eugene, Oregon, six years ago from Washington, DC. She is a contemporary painter, and painting is a expressive and cathartic process for her. “I paint from memory, starting with no preconceived notion of what the work will become. I listen to my intuition and let the surfaces emerge. My thoughts are often of the patinas that arise with age, the gradual change in the color and texture and structure of all things over time. The Oregon landscapes, seascapes, and cloudscapes have been an immense inspiration.”

Kathy Narramore is an oil painter living in Portland. Her paintings are surreal and

dreamlike with animals and people living on the threshold between magical and real

worlds. She is drawn to soft, lush, and muted colors, inviting viewers to be captured by the world she has created. 

The natural world is a key component of her work. Even though she starts out with a specific idea with each painting, she often ends up with something completely different. “Mistakes always teach me something new about my craft, and those particular works are some of my favorites.” She has been influenced by

many different artists, past and present, and often keeps their art on hand as inspiration

while she works.

   Jim Hockenhull: "I see artists as makers of analogies: this is like that in some ways, not in others. The more easily the analogy is understood, the more accessible the art becomes until it becomes banal. The more difficult the analogy the more obscure the art, the more is required of the viewer. 

When the analogy is understood by only one person, we call him crazy. I look for the sweet spot somewhere in

between banal and crazy.

To that end, I call on the generative power of procedure, on outsider art, on the profound arts of other cultures.

I’ve been helped along the way by certain Eastern philosophies, and by so many wonderful artists who have influenced my path.

True Facts:

Born in Wheaton, IL

BFA in Sculpture – University of Illinois

MFA in Sculpture– University of Iowa

Married Jo Mannino, painter and printmaker, with whom I live in Salem."

Eric's interdisciplinary approach utilizes the skills, disciplines and experiences he developed in his time in the U.S. Army, while exploring the freedom of creativity that being an Intermedia Artist affords. He starts each new artwork or project by going through his archives of images, documents, mementos, or memories accumulated throughout his life. Using those experiences and reconstructed memories, he creates either new objects or new presentations of existing objects as key elements in the artwork. By using his own experiences and memories as the foundation, he strives to build bridges between himself and an audience, trying to leave room for the audience to come to their own conclusions on the meaning of the work.

Anna Davis is a multimedia digital artist and photographer residing in Salem. She explores themes of femininity, sexuality, queerness, and motherhood within cultural and societal contexts, viewing art as both a way of life and a vehicle for social justice. She holds an MFA in Digital Art from Washington State University and a BFA in Intermedia Art from Western New Mexico University, and is deeply involved in the local arts scene. She organizes the Salem Art Fair with the Salem Art Association and serves on the board of Artists in Action. Additionally, she teaches digital art and drawing at Chemeketa Community College and Western Oregon University.

In her studio practice, Anna merges traditional craft and analog practices with cutting-edge software and technology, like AI technology and generative code. 

Despite her exploration of every possible medium, film photography remains Anna’s first love. In an age dominated by AI and digital algorithms, the uncontrollable elements of film and darkroom photography particularly appeal to her, offering a sense of unpredictability and authenticity that are a vital component to her work.