“Sense of Place” Group Exhibit Opens

Sense of Place, an exhibition of recent paintings by four Oregon artists, at its Level 2 Gallery in the Salem Convention Center. The exhibit is complemented by a second show in the Art Hall at the Salem Public Library. 

Sense of Place brings together four artists who look at real and imagined locations through different lenses.  Through their eyes, Place can be an area with definite or indefinite boundaries or areas within a particular spot or locality.  A Sense is an awareness or recognition of something; the stimulus may be subjective and the entire process may be real – or mental and intellectual. 

Through the paintings of Eugene artists Margaret Coe and Jon Jay Cruson, Nancy Lindburg working in Salem, and Matthew Dennison in Portland and the North Oregon Coast, this exhibit explores and depicts specific places and the relationships of those artists and their environments. It also examines how humans interact with the natural and built environment and the ways that locations and places have an impact on people. 

The works of art collectively reflect the subjective senses of the artists reacting to places ranging from the isolated Dakota prairie of Nancy Lindburg’s youth, to the Pacific Northwest highways that Jon Jay Cruson likes to explore, to Margaret Coe’s elegant Italian cityscapes, and the lush Oregon fauna living close by Matthew Dennison. 

The works create or preserve memorable experiences that make each place distinctively different.