About the artwork
Erik Sandgren
Waterside Conversation, 2018
Dimensions(h x w x d): 54" x 40"
Acrylic on canvas
Located in Cramer Hall, first floor study lounge in west hallway
About the artist
Erik Sandgren was born in Corvallis, Oregon in 1952 and grew up in the environs of Oregon State University. His father, Nelson Sandgren, was a noted painter and OSU art professor, and the household was saturated with visual culture that fostered Erik’s early interests and education as a painter. He went east to study at Yale (BA, 1975) and Cornell (MFA, 1977), where he honed his painting and printmaking skills and absorbed the broad path of Ivy League liberal arts.
Following his father’s career trajectory, he landed in Aberdeen, Washington in 1989, where he has served as a one-man art department at Grays Harbor College to the present day. Sabbaticals have allowed him to pursue teaching and artist-in-residence stays in England and France, where he explored plein air painting and expanded firsthand his knowledge of the history of Western art and architecture.
Sandgren has exhibited broadly in many solo, two-person, group, and juried shows and his work is held in numerous private and public collections, including those of the Franklin Furnace Gallery of the Museum of Modern Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and the China National Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou. He has also created a number of public art projects, including a 4,000-square-foot mural of Oregon landscapes he completed with his father in the Eugene/Springfield Airport in 1989; a 75-foot-long mural for the Port of Grays Harbor’s Commission Room, commemorating one hundred years of marine commerce; and the 78-foot-long Nirvana and Aberdeen mural in downtown Aberdeen.
See more of Erik Sandgren's work on his website.
This work was a gift of Bill Rhoades to Portland State University's permanent art collection.
Banner image courtesy of the artist.