The gallery is currently showing paintings from Charlie Barr “My Thailand”, as well as a group exhibit showing works from  Jane Aukshunas, Dan Larsen and Don Tiller until February 2nd, when they will be featuring works from other artists.

Here is in the info from Gunnar’s Eastside Business Directory Listing:

Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery

Fine art on the courtyard of the Hyatt Hotel at Bellevue Place. Please ‘Like’ their page and visit their website at:

www.ArtInBellevue.com

Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery is a member of the Eastside Business Directory and Gunnar is a member of Eastside Entrepreneurs too!

To sign up for BBJ’s Eastside Business Directory or to find out how to have your business featured as an Eastside Business of the Day, go to:  EastsideBusinessDirectory.com

Northwest Landscapes

March 6- April 10 Exhibit

Meet the Artists Series Vernissage (Exhibit Preview)

Wednesday March 9, 2011 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Charlie Barr is a Northwest landscape artist working with a unique mixed
media blend of acrylic and cement on panel. These contemporary landscape paintings are meant to set a mood or evoke emotion and often leave the viewer with a sense of remembrance and stimulated senses.

Barr’s goal is to create paintings ranging from representational to abstract with a focus on color, contrast, and balance. He doesn’t want the quality of the painting to diminish whether viewed from ten feet or eight inches and believes it is crucial to use texture and creative brush techniques to hold a viewers attention up close and have a strong composition to hold the viewers interest at a greater distance. Every inch of the painted surface has movement without sacrificing the overall composition.

Mike Smith was born in 1942 in Portland, Oregon, and spent his childhood growing up in Vancouver, Washington, and the Puget Sound area. He now resides in a small pulp and paper community located on the shores of the Columbia River. He graduated from the University of Portland with a degree in English Literature. Smith began drawing and sculpting at the age of two, after an interlude of baseball, he became a serious full-time artist at the age of twenty-five. He supported himself doing graphic design and other commercial art endeavors while pursuing his fine art career.

He has tried to abandon any “school” of painting and uses an autobiographical approach. His subjects are mostly found in his backyard or around the neighborhood in which he lives. His dogs, the cat, his rowboat, and ducks in his pond, are all included in the bright watercolors of his paintings. He also sculpts in bronze, paints in oils and does silk screen prints.

Smith says, “People always want to know the meaning of my work and where I get my ideas from.  My work is simply about the people and places and animals I love. Images, unlike the written word, do not dictate to you. After twenty-five years of painting almost every day, it has become my world.” It is fun-filled, colorful, and full of life.

Over the years, Smith has had more than 50 one-man shows. One of the most interesting was a double show in Leipzig, Germany – in a gallery at the American Consulate. The media he uses includes watercolor, pastel, bronze (cast and fabricated), oil, ceramic, wood, and several printmaking techniques.

A graduate of Washington State University, he earned degrees in Construction Management and Business Administration with a minor in Industrial Design.

While he has been involved in construction for the last 30 years, Larsen’s passion for the art process has been a continuing exploration into any new potential industrial medium.  In recent years, he has increasingly focused on developing his own unique art form using a variety of industrial materials.  The current paintings are created utilizing an industrial resin formulated to include microscopic heat treated glass flakes, which give the paintings extra depth and durability.

The artist’s current paintings have an emotional power and raw primal organic appeal. Larsen’s work jolts the senses with an intensely detailed explosion of infinite shapes and riotous color. Each work emanates its own unique upbeat mood and personality, imparting the sensation of playful emotion being conveyed directly and not merely being seen with the eyes.

One art enthusiast was heard to exclaim, “These paintings make Jackson Pollock look tired.”   However, when seeing one of his paintings for the first time, most viewers are compelled to simply blurt out “Wow!”

Opening reception is the Second Wednesday, March 10, 2010  6:00pm-8:00pm.