(Above: Eugene artist Adam Grosowsky’s show at the Karin Clarke Gallery is on display through Dec. 23, including many of his oversized women’s portraits and landscapes)
By Randi Bjornstad
If you sit near the front window of the Perugino coffeehouse and wine bar in downtown Eugene and glance across the street toward the Karin Clarke Gallery, chances are you might see someone walk up, come to a sudden stop and do a quick double-take at the sight of Eugene artist Adam Grosowsky’s latest show of his bold, oversized oil paintings that include both portraits and landscapes.
19th-century Japanese woodblock prints make up a show on display through January at the White Lotus Gallery
Walk out Perugino’s front door on Willamette Street and turn right toward the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, and the next shop entrance takes you into the White Lotus Gallery, now offering a more subtle but equally arresting show, “Faces of Beauty and Drama,” an exhibit of exquisitely fashioned, 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints depicting courtesans and kabuki actors.
Grosowski is something of a regular exhibitor at the Karin Clarke Gallery, but this particular show is only up on the walls through Saturday, Dec. 23, while there’s more time to peruse the woodblock prints in the White Lotus Gallery exhibit, which continues through January.
On Jan. 3, Clarke opens her new show, which she calls “The Collector’s Resale Show,” a compendium of pieces that local collectors will pull out of their attics and closets — or maybe off their very walls — with the idea of updating their own inventories.
“I’ve been a little worried that I may have ‘overchosen’ the number of pieces for the show already, but I do want it to be really full and really exciting,” she said.
The artsy yard sale of sorts will include original works by regional artists, some of whom are well known and others who are lesser known in this area, Clarke said.
“Sometimes people have inherited art that they feel they can’t keep, sometimes they’re downsizing and don’t have room for pieces they’ve had a long time, and sometimes it’s people I’ve worked with before who want to acquire new things but have to be financially discerning about the way they do it.”
Some of the represented artists are people who have taught and created art while on the faculty at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Willamette University, including many who are no longer living and some whose work she has never shown, she said.
“I always want to include art that can be affordable to the beginning collector as well as the experienced collector,” Clarke said. “There will be pieces ranging in price from $100 to several thousand dollars.”
Although it might seem as simple as putting on a garage sale, the resale art sale is anything but, Clarke said.
“It’s a whole lot of work, choosing the pieces, arranging to collect them, designing the show and keeping track of everything,” she said. “That’s why I only do it every few years — when it’s done, I need time to recover. But it’s really popular, so it’s worth the effort.”
Artist Adam Growsowsky’s oil painting, “unnamed-9” is part of a show of his work that ends Dec. 23. He also will be represented in a January “resale” show of art at the Karin Clarke Gallery
Information: karinclarkegallery.com or wlotus.com
