Guest Blogger; Gabriel Liston

Gabriel Liston in the studio

I've asked a few friends to contribute to my blog, and we're going to kick things off with Portland artist Gabriel Liston. My first contact with him was actually a result of this blog - an old post of delft painting. You can find his work at Plus gallery here in Denver, where he currently has several very reasonably priced hand-pulled etchings ($40-$100 - based on size) as well as some rich, beautiful oil paintings. I highly recommend picking up some of his work - they're even better in person. For more pics of the prints, you can check out his studio blog and contact Plus for purchasing information. Gabriel took some time to share a little about his work, his influences and works/projects in the making.

Liston writes, "I've developed a habit of saying, when asked, that I paint pictures of children taking the world apart from the inside out. Whether true or not, it's a good definition to try and live up to. I like working from a mash of drawings and oil sketches. I avoid using photos or wholesale invention."

To better understand his process of painting or what he calls, "domestically picturing a life of domesticity" the folks at OPENWIDEpdx paid a visit to the Liston studio yesterday and snapped some photos of what's currently on the easel:

Studio view of "Moonshiner" (working title), Oil on canvas 36" x 36" 2009 in progress (just about there)

(Working title) "Moonshiner", Oil on canvas 36" x 36" 2009 in progress

"With the rolling of summer I seem to have entirely forgotten what my influences are or who I'm supposed to be looking at. I have one anchor, influence wise, here (Breughel's winter scene). Someday maybe I'll visit it in person. I was in Denver last month and saw Sharks Ink at MCA just before it came down. I loved the Kushner and Grooms and got a much better sense of Chagoya. On the Western Slope, I went to see Jon Rietfors new work. Here in Portland, I'm waiting for Lli Wilburn's show to open at Froelick. Also my thoughts, and our conversations here at home, keep coming back to Brennan Conaway's short film: Trajectory and other work he's been doing with The Center for Land Use Interpretation. "

I asked Gabriel what he's been listening to in the studio lately and he said,

"Audio-wise, I'm in a technologically dysfunctional limbo. When I paint and draw on location, I don't use earphones, so there's just local noise or whatever old song is ear-worming through my head. In the studio, I listen to too much public talk radio, because I can't get KEXP, and the KBOO signal is fuzzy. In Denver, I was tuning to 96.5. Neither computer nor turntable reaches the studio so I've had the Stumptown Printers compilation Pressing Sounds in the little cd player. It's mostly great, but ironically, I lost the track listing. I did buy a Little Wings album for D's ipod to accompany our drive to Colorado. I think what I need is a live band just sort of permanently rehearsing in the living room (got more bands per square block here in Portland already, I know). I like it when my neighbor blasts soul classics on his back porch, which is by the studio window."

"I spent the winter and spring experimenting with etching and monotype as an artist in residence at Atelier Meridian. In June I made odds and ends for John Brodie's The Store for a Month. I also showed some of my recent etchings at a quick Grasshut Corp show to benefit the IPRC, Zine River.

Soon after, the Froelick Gallery showed four small plein air oil paintings as part of their Town and Country: Oregon at 150 show. Though I make those plein air paintings as part of the larger process, I hadn't shown them in a long time. I think I'll keep those a little more visible from here on out, they don't depict children in action, but they always show somewhere playable."

July 2008 plein air watercolor by Gabriel Liston

"My other recent projects include two new glass works I'd made with Spiro-Lyon Glass Studio in Carbondale. I hope to do more on my next visit.

Currently, I'm preparing to install work for the Manor show at Portland's Milepost 5 in August. I went over and picked out a room last weekend. It's an old brick retirement home, not nearly refurbished, so a very interesting place to arrange paintings, open closed doors, whistle, or wander about by yourself. I picked a high corner room with white lace curtains. I'm still working out the context I want to create. I may take part in a plein air show in the Columbia Gorge in August as well.

While in Denver, I met with a friend to collaborate on screening t-shirts from my relief prints, they're looking pretty good, we just need to figure out what brand of shirt to print on. Here's a proof - there may be some at Plus gallery soon..."

"Upcoming? There's a popular bluff here between a residential and industrial neighborhood that I'm trying to make sense of. It functions like culverts do in Colorado suburbs: a not-quite-planned, not-quite-regulated, but incredibly fun greenspace. I'm visiting and sketching it as well as the notions I got on the last trip back to Colorado and our repeated trips to the coast.

I'm also finishing up and trying to title that moonshiner canvas - like the others it's about the visual phenomena of place matched with exactly-what -are-you-doing investigations of young people. Will it give adults and younger a quiet matrix to reckon out their own life challenges upon? I'm not so sure, but I really like making these things. This week, the kids and I will hang out at our favorite grocery store watching Chris Johanson paint a big mural. No firm plans for the fall, just whispers."

Gabriel Liston, "We'll be rich for the rest of our lives", 36" x 48" oil on canvas

Thanks for sharing Gabriel.