Ravens: Landscapes of Thought and Memory

Grey Raven Gallery artist Erik Sandgren will be September’s featured artist at the Art Adventure Gallery in Madras, Oregon. His exhibit is all about ravens – a topic that we love. The reception on September 4 opens his show Ravens: Landscapes of Thought and Memory up to the public.

Sandgren’s ravens are developed as lino-cut prints and paintings. Some bear witness to pre-industrial cultural forms and others are more naturalistic.

In his own words:

“I imagine the ravens as the old Scandinavians did: as Thought and

Memory. From their perch on Odin’s shoulders they fly off each day and

bring back to him their news of the World. In this exhibition, they visit

landscapes of the Northwest from desert to sea. As Thought and

Memory, the ravens travel together and sometimes alone. We should

probably not assume they have the same tales to tell.”

Sandgren’s colorful and painterly approach references runes and

memorial stones of Northern Europe and allusions to First People’s art

forms that corroborate the uniquely North American experience.

Sandgren painted the Mortuary Poles at Skedans on site (featured below).

They are deeply relevant to notions of thought and memory. The

artist senses that insights coded into the old stories illuminate the

natural world. His modernist aesthetic and active brush claim space for

PNW indigenous culture even as the underlying motive for this

exhibition is the old Norse concept of Thought and Memory.