As a girl growing up in coastal farm country, Karen Hackenberg took walks with her father, long walks filled with noticing.

“My dad would point out the little things he enjoyed about the plants and animals around us,” she recalls. He’d pluck a twig from a low-hanging beach tree branch, and show her how to peel and chew the bark to savor its fresh, minty taste.

Karen became a keen observer of nature’s magic, and a transplant from the East Coast to the Pacific Northwest. In Conservation Conversations, she presents fresh works in gouache, inspired by her days near the shores of Discovery Bay.

As a young man in northwest Portland, Oregon, Michael Brophy had little idea what he would do with his life. Then he had the chance to go to London on an exchange program. It was there, as he walked into galleries and saw masterful paintings, that everything changed.

Michael returned to Portland, enrolled at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and built a life as a painter. He describes art as a calling, one he heard decades ago and has been answering ever since.

This exhibition offers a conversation between artists; between humans and the rest of nature; between you, the viewer, and the soul of the work.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

 

Michael Brophy’s art appears courtesy of Russo Lee Gallery of Portland; Karen Hackenberg’s art appears courtesy of Patricia Rovzar Gallery of Seattle.

Thank you to Greg Bell for curating this exhibit.