(Above: Li Tie’s Looking Far is a commanding piece in the White Lotus Gallery’s new show)

By Randi Bjornstad

The list is long of the artists whose work is on display now at the White Lotus Gallery in a show called New Work by Northwest Regional Artists.

That list includes Jon Jay Cruson, Li Tie, Helen Liu, Satoko Matouji, Connie Mueller, Jamie Newton, Nancy Pobanz Margaret Prentice, and Mike Van.

Connie Mueller creates prints by cutting away layer after layer of linoleum, printing one color at a time; this piece is called “Suttle Lake, Oregon”

Their work is all over the artistic map, ranging from Mueller’s exquisite reduction linocut prints to Newton’s wildly inventive installations, from Prentice’s serene landscapes to Li’s powerful evocations of Native American faces.

Nonetheless, gallerist HP Lin said choosing pieces for this exhibit was not really difficult.

“I asked them all to bring me some of their newer work, and for some that means going back and reworking older pieces, and for others it means doing something completely different,” Lin said. “We do this kind of show almost every year, and it always takes a couple of days for all of this to sink in, to see where the artists have come from with this new work and to appreciate the changes they have achieved in what they are doing.”

If she had to give a prize for spontaneity, it would probably go to Newton, “who has a very spontaneous way of working with nature,” Lin said.

She points to one of his most recent installations, for which he designed a “wind drawing machine,” which created a series of widely different but always beautiful abstract designs as the breeze blew the inked brush pen across the paper.

“A year ago, his annual project was to go outdoors and then paint a ‘found object’ every day,” she said. “Another thing he did was to find reeds and rushes and use them for brushes and then display them along with the paintings he did with them. And everything he does is so quiet — I always think when Jamie (Newton) says something, I have to listen very carefully.”

Sotoku Motouji’s sumi ink on paper prints can seem evoke widely different interpretations, depending on the viewer

The pieces that Motouji brought for the new show also are remarkable to Lin for their wild contrast to her work from the previous year, when she created a series of boldly colored paintings that became the projected backdrops for the Eugene Ballet Company’s production of Tony Pimble’s original choreography for Peer Gynt.

“These are so much the opposite of the Peer Gynt works,” Lin marveled. “Those were so bright and forceful, and these are done very quietly, in sumi ink on paper, and they are so abstract that they can mean something different to everyone who looks at them.”

What she appreciates most of all about the people whose work she shows is that they don’t create their art for commercial reasons, Lin said.

“When they make changes in their materials or styles, they are doing it for themselves as artists,” she said. “And it is always rewarding to see people come here who are familiar with their work and who appreciate the changes they have made for the sake of their art.”

New Work by Northwest Regional Artists

When: Through Sept. 15; a reception for the artists will be from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 25

Where: White Lotus Gallery, 767 Willamette St., Eugene

Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday

Information: 541-345-3276 or online at wlotus.com

Jamie Newton built a “wind drawing machine” to show what drawings can be created by nature itself; a drawing of the machine is at left, with a resulting artwork at right