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Hoffman Gallery

April Gallery Exhibition
Exhibit-Thursdays–Sundays | April 2–25 | 12:00-5:00pm
Opening Reception April 4 | 3:00-5:00pm
Gallery is closed the last Sunday of every month
Hoffman Center for the Arts | 594 Laneda Avenue | Manzanita
Free and open to the public

 

Featuring Works by Loren Nelson, Karen Russo, and Andrea Benson

 

Loren Nelson: The Colors of Time

As a frequent visitor to Astoria, Spirit always inspires Loren with exciting subjects to photograph. A few years ago, on his way to photograph his favorite rusty railcar, Loren became fascinated with taking close-up photographs of massive piles of colorful trawler nets at the Port of Astoria Boatyard. One day, he noticed a boat in for repairs called Iona, which is also his granddaughter’s name. Moving closer, he was completely captivated by the swirling patterns of paint, corrosion, and primer on the hull. This initial attraction grew into an obsession, and Loren has spent hours wandering through this forest of colors and textures, mesmerized by the incredible combinations of layered paint and rust. In his pursuit of abstract images, Loren is going beyond traditional visual representation and inviting viewers on a journey of personal interpretation and reflection.

Artist Bio

For over 45 years, Loren Nelson has photographed with a Deardorff 4X5 view camera and film, and used a traditional darkroom to produce selenium-toned silver gelatin prints. Recently he has also incorporated a digital workflow, using 35mm digital cameras and an iPhone to respond more spontaneously to his surroundings. Along with his darkroom work, he prints his digital images on fine-art papers using archival pigment inks. Ongoing bodies of work include Pacific Northwest landscapes, seascapes, botanicals, and Under Wraps, a series on plastic-wrapped buildings and landscapes. Portfolios of new color work include a series on trawler nets and close-up abstract studies of rust and peeling paint from the Port of Astoria Boatyard in Astoria, Oregon.

Loren Nelson’s photographs are in numerous public and private collections, including the Portland Art Museum; the Hallie Ford Museum of Art; Salem, Oregon; and the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; Tampa, FL. He is represented by the Portland Art Museum/Rental Sales Gallery in Portland, OR, LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, OR, and Aurora Gallery in Vancouver, WA. His work has been published in View Camera, LensWork, B&W, Shots, and Analog Forever Magazines.
 

Andrea Benson: Between Earth and Sky

This series evokes landscapes, weatherscapes, eruptive events, travelogues, little mysteries and small prayers for the planet.  

The construction is encaustic (bees wax based paint) and mixed media collage. Inks, watercolors, markers and pencils are used to draw and paint on Asian papers, such as Japanese Kozo paper, Nepalese Lotka paper and rice paper. The papers are then saturated with clear encaustic wax medium, making them into vibrant and often translucent wax paper sheets that can be cut, torn, layered, and arranged. Finally, with the heat of an iron or a torch, the paper pieces are melded together onto an encaustic coated wood panel base.

Lauren has bins filled with odd pieces of waxed paper, from tiny bits to large sheets. Many are castoffs from previous artworks. Often, she starts by moving around scraps until there’s a feeling of recognition or rightness.  What sensation does it create? Does it make her eyes feel good, or give her a warm feeling in my stomach? If Lauren is putting together a string of landscape images, what combination will imply a kind of poetry or sensation of place? Does it connect to things she loves? She is hoping for a surprise. The process is one of looking for something and not knowing what it is, but believing she will recognize it when she finds it.

Artist Bio

Andrea Benson moved to Portland in her mid-twenties after growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania. She has a BFA in Art from Penn State and a BFA in Interior Design from Marylhurst College. She has been working with encaustic paint, combining it with paper and drawing for over 20 years and has exhibited throughout the PNW. She has worked as an interior designer doing corporate interiors, a color consultant, a cook, a caterer, and a cleaner / organizer. The non-negotiable in her life (besides morning coffee) is daily walking – to move, feel the air and look at the world. She occasionally tutors one on one art classes in her studio.



Karen Russo: Salt of the Earth

Karen Russo is a figurative sculptor who primarily works with clay due to its malleability, capacity for transformation, and direct connection to the earth. She conveys visual stories through carving and painting, observing and interacting with an ever-changing landscape. Her art also incorporates elements of femininity and nature. In her recent collection, “Salt of the Earth,” the figure emerges from and becomes one with her landscape.

Each sculpture evolves intuitively, emerging from a solid block of clay. Through a subtractive, additive, and highly physical process, Karen carves and manipulates the form until it takes on her desired shape. The sculpture is then divided into multiple sections, hollowed, compressed, and reassembled. Patterns and textures are carved into the clay before it undergoes a slow bisque fire. Subsequently, stains, underglazes, casein, acrylic, or a combination thereof are applied to each figure’s surface, creating imagery that reflects the place Karen calls home, encompassing the ocean, forest, desert, and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

In this body of work at the Hoffman Gallery, the confluence of the feminine born from the wildness of the sea and rocky shore exudes a sense of calmness. Karen’s work explores themes of strength and contemplation, love and grief, instability and equilibrium, hope and despair. Through these maternal archetypes, evocative of the precious earth from which they were formed, she aspires to express an eternal optimism for the human spirit in this beautiful and tumultuous world.

Artist Bio

Karen Russo has resided and worked in Elmira, Oregon for nearly 35 years, surrounded by a fir forest and native flora and fauna. An integral aspect of her creative process is the time she dedicates to outdoor exploration, where she seeks inspiration in the textures, patterns, and colors of nature, such as rock formations, fossils, shells, seed pods, and plant forms. Returning to her studio, Russo carves the sculpted clay surface with designs inspired by the images she has collected outdoors.

Karen earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of California Santa Cruz in 1982. In 1986, she enrolled in the University of Oregon’s MFA Program, mentored by Paul Buckner, with a specialization in Figure Sculpture. While raising her children, Russo took a hiatus from sculpting, during which she engaged in painting, established a ceramic tile business, taught art in rural school districts, and created several public art installations in Oregon.

Since 2010, Karen has participated in courses and workshops to further her studies in figure sculpture, with renowned sculptors Beth Cavener, Adrian Arleo, Alessandro Gallo, and Tip Toland. She has also taught and hosted workshops at her home studio.

Currently, Karen Russo is represented by the RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.



 

 






  •  April 2, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 3, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 4, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 5, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 9, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 10, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 11, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 12, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 16, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 17, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 18, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 19, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 23, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 24, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
  •  April 25, 2026
     12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
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April– Gallery Exhibition

Venue:  

Address:
594 Laneda Avenue, Manzanita, Oregon, 97130

Description:

Situated on the main street in Manzanita just a few blocks west of Highway 101, the Hoffman Center Art Gallery is located across the street from the North Tillamook Library.