Laurie Balmuth

I am incapable of doing the things I need to do in order to have an art career. I am a prolific painter and paint constantly. I am not a teacher, not a member of a movement or a group. The only consistency in my work is variety. I do not like to repeat myself. I was born and raised in Connecticut and moved to Oregon in 1988. Painting is a deep need and lifetime obsession. I can't stop making art and I can't stop looking at art. Artistic production takes its own path. . Each painting is unique in it's conception and revelations. In the beginning there is the need to draw. A need to move and touch the surface with a mark. I look at my paintings and the time in my life I made it. I see the colors and images that seemed to grow unbidden and all of themselves in a manner I could not have ever predicted. I start from a place of hollowness and fill that place with color and in that time and place, made exactly to my specifications. I see there in front of me stories that I did not know were in my head. I have read that writers write every day and their characters seem to develop on their own. This is the narrative of my work.

Pacific Northwest College of Art B.F.A.
Painting and Printmaking 1993 and 1994
New York Studio Program 1994.
Private and group instruction.
Chinese calligraphy and brush painting,
including the five colors of ink
Gong Yi Wang, Portland OR 2000-2015
Museum of Fine Arts School, Boston 1964

Selected Solo Exhibitions 1998-2020
2019 Hilton Hampton in Portland
2016 Columbia Center for the Arts June
Hood River Library July August
Hood River Providence Hospital October
2012 Mt. Hood Health and Wellness Clinic Hood River
Art Adventure Gallery Madras Or May
2000 Lead Gallery Seattle, WA
1999 Quartersaw Gallery Portland, OR
Artemisia Gallery Chicago IL
1998 Lead Gallery Seattle, WA
Quartersaw Gallery Portland, OR
1997 Lead Gallery, Seattle, WA
Quartersaw Gallery Portland Or



Selected Group Exhibitions: 1998-2018

2018 Columbia Center for the Arts “Hood River OR July “Best of the Gorge”
Remains Gallery Hood River OR May
2017 Columbia Center for the Arts “Hood River OR July “Best of the Gorge”
Columbia Center for the Arts “Hood River OR June “Out Door Art”
Remains Gallery Hood River OR
Columbia Center for the Arts “Hood River OR From the Heart” February
White Salmon Library Koobdooga September People's Choice Honorable Mention
Stevenson WA Library Arts in the Gorge

2016 Columbia Center for the Arts Hood River OR Holiday Show December
Remains Gallery Hood River Oregon June-July
Best of the Gorge Juried by Linda Tesnor Columbia Center for the Arts Hoo...