Today we’d like to introduce you to Erik Sandgren.
Hi Erik, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
As a second generation artist, I’ve long been associated with the culture of visual arts in the Pacific Northwest. I make woodcut prints, easel paintings and large scale public projects. These include murals in the Montesano and Aberdeen Washington public libraries, the Port of Grays Harbor Centennial Mural Project, Nirvana in Aberdeen and the Eugene/Springfield Airport Concourse Project on which I assisted my father, Nelson Sandgren. To my knowledge, this is the largest mural in the Northwest at 4600 square feet. After a long tenure at Grays Harbor College as a one-person art department on the Olympic Peninsula, I returned to Oregon in 2017. Here I continue to exhibit regularly and paint daily. My landscapes continue to evoke the Deep Northwest – an inspired intertwine of people and places.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No one really wants to hear the tedious details of the headwinds we’ve all faced…… and continue to face! I’m privileged to have grown up in an artistic household with a supportive family, a good marriage, ongoing education, health and traditions that have helped me stay the course. The ways any one artist manages to wiggle through and makes a go of their work, probably doesn’t help the next one much. Social norms and preferences, the economy and technologies are constantly evolving. My efforts are devoted to producing work that finds some kind of home where it has an enduring appeal. The real struggle is to continue to do that on a daily basis…. to move the ball forward every day.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I’ve made and presented art to the public as a sole-proprietor – more as an artisan than entrepreneur. Having earned my MFA, I was credentialed as a college teacher and I found teaching compatible and conducive to my development as an artist. I gradually developed a solid foundation for the scope and recognizable look of my work: a flexible way of working that feels like me, even as I address diverse subjects in several different media. As a second generation painter/printmaker/teacher I emerged from a long teaching career at Grays Harbor College with a body of work that I’m now expanding and bringing to the public.
As an independent fine artist I am free to deal directly with collectors while maintaining strong relationships with several galleries across the region. My pricing has remained reasonable for whatever level of reputation and recognition I have achieved. This is represented in the book Pacific Threshold which documents an exhibition at Oregon Sate University of forty seven consecutive years of painting and teaching each summer on the Oregon Coast. My work is presented there in the context of fellow painters. The annual Sandgren PaintOut is open to serious painters of all levels of experience. It will happen again this July: the schedule and itinerary are posted on social media. Come join us!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I am particularly honored to have been a featured artist at the Maryhill Museum of Art in their 2024 exhibition entitled The Columbia River: Wallula to the Sea. My current gallery representation includes the Portland Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery, Karin Clarke Gallery in Eugene, the RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, and the Art Adventure Gallery in Madras. I have been an artist member of Print Arts Northwest from 1981-present.
My work can be seen in public collections including the University of Oregon Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Maryhill Museum, Portland State University, the Museum of Oregon Territory, University of Portland, Oregon State University, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art of Willamette University, the Franklin Furnace Gallery of the Museum of Modern Art, Yale University Art Gallery and the China National Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou.
Erik Sandgren papers: Pacific Northwest Artist Archives in Special Collections Willamette University,
Erik Sandgren Papers: SCARC, Valley Library at OSU
Artist in Residence: Rochefort-en-Terre, Brittany; Maryland Institute College of Art 2003, 2006
Fulbright Teaching Exchange to Hastings College of Art and Technology, England 1995-96
Washington Artist Trust grant recipient 1993
Dartmouth College 1987 NEH Summer Seminar: English Romanticism and the Visual Arts
Cornell University, MFA 1977 painting and printmaking
Yale College, BA 1975 Yale at Norfolk Program, summer 1974
Selected Publications:
The Columbia River: Wallula to the Sea by Steven L. Grafe, The Maryhill Museum of Art 2024
Pacific Threshold: Painting the Oregon Coast with Friends 1978-2023
Strait Art; An Anthology of Exhibitions from the Upper Left-Hand Corner
Jake Seniuk Marrowstone Press 2020
Visual Magic, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Ed. Hartz and Knapp 2018
Washington Coast Magazine – The Art of Grit and Grime – Erik Sandgren, Summer 2015
100 Artists of the Northwest by Ashley Rooney, Schiffer Publications 2014
Port Angeles Fine Art Center, Ghost Stories by Jake Seniuk 2013
This Bountiful Place, Oregon Historical Society Press and OSU 2006
Pricing:
- $200 – $15000 depending on size and medium
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eriksandgren.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6uJ5w3IHbD/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eriknsandgren
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oimk9IeRmbw&t=247s
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBJPUwIVilY
