Take a trip(le) to Manzanita
The latest show at Manzanita’s Hoffman Center for the Arts features works by Matthew Palmgren and Allison Asbjornsen alongside ceramics by Michelle Valigura.
The show opens with an artists’ reception from 3 to 5 pm on Saturday, April 1, during which the artists will speak about their work and answer questions.
Matthew Palmgren, a mixed media artist from Seattle, will be showing his vertical, slender pieces that scale the walls. His work uses layered paper, transfers, drawings and collage in vertical compositions to create a visual narrative. He pulls from museum collections, advertising, photographs, the internet, and magazines to create new and hopefully unexpected iconography.
Palmgren relocated to the North Oregon Coast in 2010 and works out of his Astoria studio. He is also the assistant curator at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.
For the past eight years Allison Asbjornsen has been working with obvious, singular images. This show features her horses.
“Horses have an elemental energy,” she said. “Ears that touch the sky, four feet on earth… they embody energy.”
Asbjornsen has lived and maintained a studio in Tillamook County since 1971. She has shown in Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Los Angeles and Oslo, and she has taught drawing and basic design at universities and colleges all over Oregon.
Michelle Valigura is a sculptor with a primary focus on ceramics. Her background in film production design and stop-motion animation along with her love of mid-century design has built a foundation for a strong sense of color and aesthetics that can be seen in her work.
Valigura opened Basalt studio and showroom in downtown Cannon Beach in 2019. Her show, “Walk on the Wild Side,” is a nod to the Lou Reed song that was released in 1972 (the year she was born) and the wildlife that inhabits this beautiful area. Valigura considers “Walk on the Wild Side” to be an anthem for outliers trying to find a place and a community that accepts them and helps them thrive.
The show will be on display from March 30 through April 29, available to view from noon to 5 pm Thursdays through Sundays at the Hoffman Center for the Arts, 594 Laneda Avenue.