Artist Statement and Biography
I am driven, compelled, perhaps possessed by the need to express my reaction to things. I don’t desire to re-create or duplicate things. Rather, I must make a monument, a contribution - one color interacting with another; wind moving the bright greens of leaves on a 300-year-old tree; the smell of decaying foliage after rain; light refracting through a glass of wine in early afternoon; tasting a warm ripe peach just picked; watching curvaceous hips of a beautiful woman sway as she walks down the sidewalk; the unselfconscious laugh of a friend; the soft quiet I can almost feel when the first snow falls. I am driven to say, “Thank you universe for allowing me to feel this – I see it, I get it, I want to enshrine this moment.
I obsess that others see, feel, and remember beauty. I want everything I do to tell a story so that others experience beauty with me or from my experiences with the intent that they see what perhaps they might have missed before.
For me, creating - painting, sculpting, building - is conversing with everything that is and participating physically in things that otherwise would be ethereal, mental, emotional, and spiritual. My work is what I am unable to say or write. My work is my participation in life.
I was born in LaGrande, Oregon and my work has primarily been exhibited throughout Oregon. However, I have also lived and exhibited work in Arizona, Idaho, and North Carolina. I currently live in the community of St. Johns in Portland, Oregon with my wife Brandi and daughter Violet.
Exhibits
I am driven, compelled, perhaps possessed by the need to express my reaction to things. I don’t desire to re-create or duplicate things. Rather, I must make a monument, a contribution - one color interacting with another; wind moving the bright greens of leaves on a 300-year-old tree; the smell of decaying foliage after rain; light refracting through a glass of wine in early afternoon; tasting a warm ripe peach just picked; watching curvaceous hips of a beautiful woman sway as she walks down the sidewalk; the unselfconscious laugh of a friend; the soft quiet I can almost feel when the first snow falls. I am driven to say, “Thank you universe for allowing me to feel this – I see it, I get it, I want to enshrine this moment.
I obsess that others see, feel, and remember beauty. I want everything I do to tell a story so that others experience beauty with me or from my experiences with the intent that they see what perhaps they might have missed before.
For me, creating - painting, sculpting, building - is conversing with everything that is and participating physically in things that otherwise would be ethereal, mental, emotional, and spiritual. My work is what I am unable to say or write. My work is my participation in life.
I was born in LaGrande, Oregon and my work has primarily been exhibited throughout Oregon. However, I have also lived and exhibited work in Arizona, Idaho, and North Carolina. I currently live in the community of St. Johns in Portland, Oregon with my wife Brandi and daughter Violet.
Exhibits
- Damian H. Ryan Studio, Owner and Featured Artist, Eugene, OR, 2010 – 2011
- Edge, Owner and Featured Artist, La Grande, OR, 2009 – 2010
- Winterrowd Peterson Studios, Co-owner and Featured Artist, Asheville, NC, 2007 - 2008
- Uffelman Gallery, Co-owner and Featured Artist, Cannon Beach, OR, 2001 – 2005
- Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, Stormy Weather Arts Festival, Highest Bid 7 Consecutive Years in Quickdraw, Cannon Beach, OR, 1998 - 2005
- Riversea Gallery, Featured Artist, Astoria and Cannon Beach, OR, 1999 – 2000
- Hershey Radmacher Gallery, Featured Artist, Cannon Beach, OR, 1998 – 1999
- The Arts Council of Pendleton, Open Regional Exhibit, Silver Medal Watercolor, Pendleton, OR, 1997
- 3rd Street Gallery, Joint Show, Watercolor, McMinnville, OR, 1993
- Phinney Peterson Gallery, Co-owner and Featured Artist, Coeur d’ Alene, ID, 1990 - 1992
- Miters Touch Gallery, Solo Show, Watercolor, La Grande, OR, 1989
- Phoenix Institute of Technology, Senior Show, Phoenix, AZ, 1989