(Above: Zenon 5 is one of Adam Grosowsky’s large paintings in Bread, Shelter, Circus)

(Correction: The initial version posted on 01-02-20 misspelled Adam Grosowsky’s surname, accidentally ending it with an “i” instead of a “y”. Many apologies for that error …)

By Randi Bjornstad

Sometimes as Adam Grosowsky drives around the Eugene area at night, he glances toward a well-lit living room along the way and suddenly catches a glimpse of one of his own paintings on the wall.

Adam Grosowsky’s paintings are often large and flamboyantly colorful

It’s always a bit of a surprise for the artist, whose oversized personality results in oversized paintings often characterized by large swathes of black pierced by the brilliant reds, whites, and yellows that make up his signature style. Many are portraits. Some incorporate birds, others umbrellas. Some are more traditional landscapes, but while also striking, those seem a bit out of sync with his signature oeuvre.

Regardless, Grosowsky is grateful for the patronage he has found in the local community since he arrived here some 35 years ago.

“In this town alone, I feel so much gratitude for having so many patrons who have supported me,” he said. “I have been doing this so long — I’m 60 now — and sometimes I see paintings that I know are mine but that I don’t remember. I think I have 1,600 paintings out in the world that have taken thousands and thousands hours. I probably have hundreds that I don’t even remember.”

So his appeal to art enthusiasts both thrills and awes him. “When someone in Eugene spends as much as $6,000 for a painting I have done, I know that’s a lot of money for them,” he said. “I am so grateful.”

Besides painting, Grosowsky also taught art for 30 years at Lane Community College.

He sometimes worries that he might be on the verge of saturating the market in his home town.

“Sometimes I think it just can’t continue,” he said “The art thing can be so weird. In some places, like Aspen (Colorado), there are so many rich dudes coming from all over, and the galleries charge such outrageous prices because everyone there has so much money. One of my paintings they sold for $28,000 — of course they take a huge chunk for themselves — but some guy bought it like he was buying a cheeseburger.”

Grosowsky was born into an artistic family in Carbondale, Ill., “a little college town like Eugene,” he said. His father taught in the Design Department at Southern Illinois University with architect Buckminster Fuller, and his mother taught art, drawing, and painting at a local community college.

“After my mom died, my sister sent me a giant box of 50 lbs. of drawings I had done — lots of spaceships and submarines and smelling of magic marker,” he said. “But when I was a kid, I didn’t want to be getting art supplies all the time, I wanted a toy car or a model (kit) of a Spitfire airplane.”

Nonetheless, he was so impressed by the printmaking of Herbert Fink, who taught at SIU Carbondale, that when it came time for college, Grosowsky enrolled at Evergreen State College “and made prints for four years.” From there he went to the University of Iowa and studied with Mauricio Lasansky, an Argentine artist and intaglio printmaker who “was the Andrew Wyeth of printmaking and taught at Iowa for 50-plus years,” Grosowsky said.

“My last year at Iowa, I took a painting class, and I thought, ‘Why did I ever do printmaking — I want to be a painter,’ ” he recalled. “My dad died when I was 21, right before I went to Iowa. I found out a week later that I had been accepted, which was amazing because they admitted only about five people a year. That changed my whole direction.”

Birds are a frequent theme in Grosowsky’s paintings, reflecting a lifelong attraction for avian creatures

Grosowsky’s career got an important kickstart when he began practicing his painting skills by “customizing” elements of paintings by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, whom he greatly admired.

“I had started showing my work in Portland, and I had a show in Seattle,” he recalled. “I was so nervous at the opening that I left for awhile, and when I got back I was told that a buyer from Nordstrom (department stores) had bought all the Vermeer-like paintings. Eventually, they bought 100 of my paintings for their stores all over the country. That was my early heyday.”

Grosowsky’s paintings often incorporate a bird somehow, an homage to a love of falconry that began when he was 10 years old and one of his father’s students rescued a hawk and trained it to hunt.

“I loved birds from then on,” he said, and had several, with special affection for an Amazon parrot and a Moluccan cockatoo.

In addition to the appearance of birds, Grosowsky’s paintings also often evoke circus-related images — he’s fascinated by the mental and physical challenges of wirewalking and the general psychology of circus performers — or umbrellas and awnings, which he associates with the necessity of finding shelter from the elements.

A third expression in his work relates to humanity in general, “because so many people are just scraping by, trying to make a living, doing what they have to do just to survive,” Grosowsky said.

All of those elements are present in his show, Bread, Shelter, Circus, on display at the Karin Clarke Gallery through Jan. 11.

Bread, Shelter, Circus

When: Through Jan 11

Where: Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette St., Eugene

Gallery hours: Noon to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday (open until 7:30 p.m. during the Jan. 3 First Friday ArtWalk)

Information: 541-684-7963 or karinclarkegallery.com