Bulletin E-Edition:
more photos‘Apertural'
By Cara Thayer and Louie Van Patten
The human element
Husband and wife work together on visceral images of the human form
By Eleanor Pierce / The Bulletin
Published: September 04. 2009 4:00AM PSTWhen Bend's newest art space, Tew Boots Gallery, opens its second show tonight at the First Friday Gallery Walk in Bend (see “If you go”), there will be two featured artists. But don't bother asking who painted which canvas. They both did.
Louie Van Patten calls the oil paintings he creates with his wife, Cara Thayer, traditional oil paintings. And in a way, they are; they're technically impressive oil portraits that explore the human figure.
But the paintings are non-traditional as well, and not just because of the way they're created, with both Thayer, 28, and Van Patten, 24, working on the same canvas at the same time. It's the artists' tweaks to the idea of portraiture that make the work feel more fresh than traditional.
For their current series, they've created two sets of three paintings, titled “Apertural” and “Stomata.” The paintings are of faces, but they're cropped so close the entire face is never visible. Both triptychs have what Thayer called an “implied narrative,” a subtle change from frame to frame that can't quite be teased out. Something is happening, but it's hard to tell what. The effect is visceral, even confrontational.
The couple are comfortable creating art that challenges viewers. It's not that they want to stir up controversy or upset people. But they do want to get people thinking.
“When you get something that people don't know if they like it or not, it creates dialogue,” Thayer said. “It can be terrible, it can be great, but if it gets people talking about art —”
“If people are talking then you're doing something right,” Van Patten said, completing the thought.
The couple met in 2005, when Thayer, who is originally from Bend, was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She'd been encouraged to go to art school by her painting teacher at Central Oregon Community College, Bill Hoppe.
“He said that everything I did was deliberate, and that I had the talent to go to whatever school I wanted,” Thayer recalled. She said the encouragement “made a huge difference.”
When Thayer met Van Patten, he was visiting a friend at the Art Institute from his home in West Des Moines, Iowa.
“We started making art immediately,” he said, though they didn't paint. At first, they worked together with resin, spray paint and stencils.
Van Patten said that at the time, he didn't know how to paint. If he did anything creative, it was usually digital art, or commercial design, like an album cover for a friend's band.
“I sort of learned to paint from her,” Van Patten said.
When the couple moved to Bend after Thayer earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing and painting, Van Patten started attending COCC, where he now studies under Hoppe. A painting of Van Patten's, a nude oil portrait titled “Calla II,” won the college's Library Purchase Award this year.
The couple have an air of aestheticism when they talk about their work.
When Thayer described the work she did in art school, work she said Van Patten was involved with, as well, she spoke of its conceptual nature.
The pieces were created with torn pieces of canvas, which she would weave over a basic frame.
“Using color and pattern, it related to human elements. Hair, flesh,” she said.
“It was still concerned with the painting material,” Van Patten inserted, “in a hierarchical sense.”
The strong connection the couple share is apparent, as well. When one is asked a question, they often look at each other, and the other will answer.
“I don't mind being spoken for,” Van Patten said.
They've been showing their collaborative work for about two years, first at small galleries on the Oregon Coast and in Seattle and Vancouver, Wash.
The couple have worked odd jobs together since moving to Bend, including finish carpentry for Thayer's stepfather. But they're now trying to devote themselves to their art full time. Because of their limited budget, they live with Thayer's dad, using a 1970s-era rec room as a studio space and sleeping in a converted sauna.
“We sleep in a closet, and our room is our studio,” Van Patten said.
“The amount of space we have we would not be able to get anywhere else for our budget,” Thayer said. “It works though.”
Their studio is a refuge for the couple, a place to dedicate themselves to their art.
When they look at the finished pieces, they say they each find that they've lost themselves in the process.
“I have a hard time seeing how it ends and how it begins,” Van Patten said.
Thayer agreed. “We forget who painted what.”
Eleanor Pierce can be reached at 541-617-7828 or epierce@bendbulletin.com.
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