Coastal Oregon Visual Artists Showcase Presents Lincoln County Painter Robin Longerbeam “Fluid Connections” exhibit to run May 12 to July 3, 2015
The Oregon Coast Council for the Arts is pleased to present “Fluid Connections,” an exhibit of paintings and mixed-media work by Lincoln County artist Robin Longerbeam in the Coastal Oregon Visual Artists Showcase at the Newport Visual Arts Center from May 12 to July 3.
An opening reception for “Fluid Connections” will be held June 5, 5-7pm at the VAC.
Robin Longerbeam’s primary educational background is in the sciences–biology, zoology and nursing—and she expresses her process in scientific terms. “I see my art as the creation of a biological environment or entity,” she says. “Each creation, like the birth of a child, starts out simple, requiring a great deal of time and invested energy to assist its growth to the next level.”
Longerbeam applies multiple layers, using different application techniques, to each painting, which can have up to 20 layers of suffused textures and subtle gradations of hues and form. “Each layer contains different cellular structure, each struggling to survive,” she says. “Some live symbiotically, some survive through predation. We live in a community that only flourishes if we stay interconnected.”
Longerbeam likes to work on small canvasses. Her acrylic on canvas, mixed-media on canvas and mixed-media on board works are typically 4 by 6 inches, adding to their sense of operating at the molecular level. The small works are also well-suited for exhibition in the COVAS showcase.
Robin Longerbeam considers herself to be a primarily self-taught artist, though she attended the Arts Student’s League in Manhattan, New York, and has participated in classes and workshops in oil painting, watercolors, jewelry making and welding. She was born and raised in New York and recently relocated with her son and two cats from Eugene to Newport. Her work has appeared in The New Zone Gallery in Eugene, Bend Your Imagination in Bend, Oregon, Fragment Gallery in Tucson, Arizona, and the Infusion Gallery in Los Angeles, California, among other galleries and festivals across the Western United States. Her work was recently featured in NW Creative Magazine and the New Art International 15th Edition.
Besides pursuing her visual art practice along the Oregon coast, Robin Longerbeam is currently a peri-operative nurse at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport.
The Coastal Oregon Visual Artists Showcase is open noon to 4pm, Tuesday – Saturday.