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Richard Wiegmann Art Reception at CU-Portland - At The Edge: Oregon Works

Celebrate with our very own resident artist, Richard Wiegmann as his works are displayed at Concordia University’s Library!

At the Edge: Oregon Works

From the artist:

 

The show is made up of two bodies of work completed since I moved to Oregon. One consists of mixed media drawings on polyester film, the other acrylic paintings on canvas. Themes for all of them are based on experiences at the coast where land and water meet—walking the sand, exploring tidepools, looking out on the sea. 

 

Beachgoers and receding tides arbitrarily leave on the sand things that are ephemeral and fragmentary. Tidepools present complex but coherent ecologies which appear and disappear with the regularity of waves. Life forms survive among the rocks by supple movement and tenacious grip. Our feet may sink into sand and slip on wet rocks, but while we pursue simple random discoveries we are also aware of the distant, dependable horizon. The line that underscores the sky remains straight and true, unchanging and seemingly timeless. 

 

My imagery and my creative process both involve time. Things accumulate or get taken away. The open composition in the drawings suggests that while everything exists all-at-once and is interrelated we see things part by part, often with quick shifts of attention. Representation and abstraction are complementary, and wholeness depends on the balanced synthesis of juxtapositions and transitions. Different spatial effects—flat, illusionistic, or in-between—imply different kinds of time.

 

Stone, sand, water and sky are elemental and open to wonder and metaphor. Observed colors, textures and forms offer themselves freely for invention and celebration.

 

Earlier Event: September 3
Ladies Bible Study & Guild
Later Event: September 6
Retired Pastors Bible Group