Jay Backstrand



Jay Backstrand
The Usual Suspects 2008
oil on canvas
78" x 96"

Painter Jay Backstrand has an amazing eye for the unusual.  His enigmatic imagery pulls the viewer into an abstruse and unique mapping of world history and phenomena.  The work alludes to a kind of Pop Art vividness, referencing art history, culture and politics.  Beautifully seductive, his canvases show off his technical expertise.  Playing with color and scale, juxtaposing the familiar with the strange, the artist engages the viewer with this complexity of subject matter.  Connecting to our subconscious, his assemblages seem ironic and prophetic.  Backstrand pulls the viewer into a powerful and multivalent contemporary commentary.

Jay Backstrand studied at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where he later taught art from 1975-1986.  He also studied at the Slade School in London as a Fulbright fellow.  He has exhibited his work since the 1960s, and in the 1970s was a co-founder of the Portland Center for Visual Arts.  In 1984, he was honored with a 10-year retrospective at Marylhurst College, OR.  His work is included in the collections of the National Gallery, Washington, DC; the Oxford University Press Print Collection, England; the Portland Art Museum; the Seattle Art Museum; the Tacoma Art Museum; the Henry Gallery at University of Washington; Denver Art Museum; and Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, Salem, OR.  Awards include an NEA grant, an Oregon Arts Foundation grant, and a Smithsonian Institute purchase award.  His work was included in the Eighth Northwest Biennial at Tacoma Art Museum in 2007.

More examples by Jay Backstrand

Eric Stotik


Eric Stotik
Untitled LR 117 (sprouted eyes /foliage) 2008
acrylic on metal saw blade
13.5" diameter

We are pleased to present the paintings of Eric Stotik.   His small, delicate narratives depict unusual worlds.  Incorporating dreamlike figures and scapes that warrant further investigation, they elicit a darker side of the psyche.  In style and scale, his renderings are totemic and intricate, often fooling the eye. With clarity of mission, the artist approaches his process as meditation.  Time drops away and awareness becomes focused on the expressions of these microcosms.  The flavor and maturity of his work has been influenced by his experiences working in and out of the book world, and a residency with Gordon Gilkey to pursue intaglio printmaking.  Stotik’s work is intimate and mesmerizing.

Eric Stotik grew up between Papua, New Guinea and Melbourne, Australia.  As an adult, he came to Portland to study art at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where he graduated in 1985.  He won the prestigious Betty Bowen Memorial Award in 1994 and was Artist in Residence at the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for the Graphic Arts, Portland Art Museum in 1997.  He has shown his work extensively throughout the Northwest.  His work is included in the collections of: the Hallie Ford Museum at Willamette University, Salem; the Portland Art Museum; the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah; Idaho State University; the New York Public Library; and Yale University.

More examples by Eric Stotik

Upcoming 2009 Exhibitions:

May 7 - 30
Anne Siems – Recent Paintings
Jan Reaves – New Paintings

June 4 - 27
Connie Kiener – Recent Ceramics
Marlene Bauer – Small Works on Paper