Holiday Fine Art Exhibit at Sunriver Lodge
Sunriver Betty Gray Gallery joins the Traditions celebration with a fine art exhibition on display through the New Year festivities. Presenting animal portraits in oil, Barbara Slater joins Joanne Donaca and Vicki Shuck showing small works.
Oil painter Slater exhibits fanciful and endearing animals including pigmy pigs, elegant roosters, soulful horses, a holiday lamb and other barnyard animals. Her affection for them and her skillful grasp of their natures is apparent in the imagery. This devotion to animals began while growing up on her grandfather’s rich farmland in the Eden Valley in Utah where irritated heifers would finally herd her away from their baby calves. Though adoring animals and a lifetime painter, she began to paint her beloved barnyard subjects in earnest only in 2008.
Floral imagery was then her preferred subject. Her excellence in that genre received recognition through invitation to participate in the prestigious Richard Schmid Art Auction in Fort Collins, CO. Juried into four consecutive shows from 2008, the 2011 auction elevated her image of back lighted grapes, Succulent, to the live auction.
During this period, colorful roosters, reminiscent of her brilliantly hued florals, occasionally appeared in her work. Then, while accompanying friends on a farms visit in Fossil, OR, she encountered a day-old colt; childhood memories and the rich sensual experience of the colt’s smell and soft coat compelled her to paint her first horse, The Youngster.
Thus began the pursuit of Herefords in fields, multiple breeds of horses, iconographic sheep, and an irresistible urge to paint portraits of these animal personalities. Her popular work commands commissions of family pets, prize-winning horses, lovely angora goats, raucous pigs and “lots of God’s creatures.”
Future plans include winter attendance at the Scottsdale Art School to study “fur and feathers” with noted animal artist Phil Beck. A graduate of Utah State University with an art minor, and now over 40 years of paintings in oil, her experience and market stretches from California and Utah to Chicago, Colorado and back to Oregon. Yet, Slater notes that this winter’s study supports her desire to continually stretch her technique and maintain enthusiasm – to attract the muse.
Donaca, desiring to expand her competency in pastel, explored new painting styles in the medium in late 2009. This expansion appears in her new work with expressionistic landscapes of Central Oregon in both pastel and oil. She also shows small oil impressionistic landscapes of the area. Recognized for her art by the Oil Painters of America, Donaca also is a signature member of the Pastel Society of OR, the Northwest, and the Pastel Society of America. Her art appears in private and public collections including Sunriver Resort.
Shuck‘s interest in figurative imagery began during her BA study in art at OSU in the mid-70’s; departing for some years, she began illustrations from sacred texts in ‘89, often for publishers. In ‘07, the artist returned to figurative art with small, expressionistic oil paintings of every-day scenes such as café patrons, rodeos and horses, dogs, outdoor festivals and other groups of people. She notes that this focus on secular imagery truly continues her devotional work, celebrating the spiritual nature of life. A member of Oil Painters of America, Shuck teaches adult classes at Arts Central.
Sunriver Betty Gray Gallery welcomes the public to the exhibit continuing through the New Year celebrations during Lodge hours. Billye Turner, art consultant, organizes gallery exhibitions for Sunriver Resort and provides additional information at 541-382-9398.
Oil painter Slater exhibits fanciful and endearing animals including pigmy pigs, elegant roosters, soulful horses, a holiday lamb and other barnyard animals. Her affection for them and her skillful grasp of their natures is apparent in the imagery. This devotion to animals began while growing up on her grandfather’s rich farmland in the Eden Valley in Utah where irritated heifers would finally herd her away from their baby calves. Though adoring animals and a lifetime painter, she began to paint her beloved barnyard subjects in earnest only in 2008.
Floral imagery was then her preferred subject. Her excellence in that genre received recognition through invitation to participate in the prestigious Richard Schmid Art Auction in Fort Collins, CO. Juried into four consecutive shows from 2008, the 2011 auction elevated her image of back lighted grapes, Succulent, to the live auction.
During this period, colorful roosters, reminiscent of her brilliantly hued florals, occasionally appeared in her work. Then, while accompanying friends on a farms visit in Fossil, OR, she encountered a day-old colt; childhood memories and the rich sensual experience of the colt’s smell and soft coat compelled her to paint her first horse, The Youngster.
Thus began the pursuit of Herefords in fields, multiple breeds of horses, iconographic sheep, and an irresistible urge to paint portraits of these animal personalities. Her popular work commands commissions of family pets, prize-winning horses, lovely angora goats, raucous pigs and “lots of God’s creatures.”
Future plans include winter attendance at the Scottsdale Art School to study “fur and feathers” with noted animal artist Phil Beck. A graduate of Utah State University with an art minor, and now over 40 years of paintings in oil, her experience and market stretches from California and Utah to Chicago, Colorado and back to Oregon. Yet, Slater notes that this winter’s study supports her desire to continually stretch her technique and maintain enthusiasm – to attract the muse.
Donaca, desiring to expand her competency in pastel, explored new painting styles in the medium in late 2009. This expansion appears in her new work with expressionistic landscapes of Central Oregon in both pastel and oil. She also shows small oil impressionistic landscapes of the area. Recognized for her art by the Oil Painters of America, Donaca also is a signature member of the Pastel Society of OR, the Northwest, and the Pastel Society of America. Her art appears in private and public collections including Sunriver Resort.
Shuck‘s interest in figurative imagery began during her BA study in art at OSU in the mid-70’s; departing for some years, she began illustrations from sacred texts in ‘89, often for publishers. In ‘07, the artist returned to figurative art with small, expressionistic oil paintings of every-day scenes such as café patrons, rodeos and horses, dogs, outdoor festivals and other groups of people. She notes that this focus on secular imagery truly continues her devotional work, celebrating the spiritual nature of life. A member of Oil Painters of America, Shuck teaches adult classes at Arts Central.
Sunriver Betty Gray Gallery welcomes the public to the exhibit continuing through the New Year celebrations during Lodge hours. Billye Turner, art consultant, organizes gallery exhibitions for Sunriver Resort and provides additional information at 541-382-9398.
