Kirsten Rian

Rian is a member of the mischievously creative Organ Players and Storytellers group, named after a quote from Rothko to Guston: “Philip, you are the best storyteller and I am the best organ player.”

This band of six crazily creative painter and print maker folks–Stephanie Doyle, Aaron Scothorn, Kate O’Neil, David Patrick Trowbridge, and Kurt Dahlke–hold annual exhibitions and maintain a running conversation about art and the world on their blogspot:

http://organplayersandstorytellers.blogspot.com

Prior to this she was a member of the noted artist collective, Gallery 114. Rian is an abstract painter and has been active in the national arts community for 20 years. She has been awarded an Artists for the Arts grant, Catalyst Fund grant, and Soapstone residency. An arts educator, she teaches writing for artists and arts marketing. All diptychs and grids are acrylics/chalk pastel/charcoal/mixed media on wood based around the theme of geography. Please inquire for current pricing.

From The Oregonian, 5.1.2008: …not enough know Rian has long been a deeply talented painter…in her non-objective abstract work layered textures serve as metaphors for the natural landscape, history, even chronic illness.

From The Oregonian, 11.3.2005: Rian’s paintings are stormy, tangled and outspoken reflections of interior and exterior landscapes.

From The Portland Mercury, 11.3.2005: Kirsten Rian creates dark, heavily-worked diptychs of acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on wood that recall the scratchy, angsty works of Cy Twombly, Lucinda Parker, and Susan Rothenberg.

Chord 1