The Cannon Beach History Center and Museum has become well-known for its displays of beautiful textile work, but the organization likes to spread its wings every now and again. This fall, we are looking forward to hosing an exhibit by Stirling Gorsuch. On Saturday, October 8 at 6:00 p.m., Gorsuch’s latest exhibit, Oregon Visions opens at the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum. Gorsuch is a Cannon Beach native and rising star in the art community with his printed creations.
The pieces for Oregon Visions span the last few years of his work, which was inspired by the beautiful contrasting landscapes of Oregon. Gorsuch says, “My choice to focus on landscape in my work originated from my upbringing in Cannon Beach.” He memoralizes time spent by a bonfire, stargazing, hiking soggy trails, and surfing frigid Pacific summer waters. Gorsuch also spent several years in Bend, an area that has become as much of an inspiration as Cannon Beach with its drastically different seasons, raging forest fires, and snowy blizzards. These “intense natural phenomena became central themes in my work.”
Over the years, Gorsuch says that he has experienced “a shift in how I perceived landscape, not just as a place, but also as a subject for further investigation into how time shapes environments.”
In a word, “Oregon Visions” is Oregon. Oregon now and Oregon as it was. Inspired, breathtaking, and beautiful. His prints integrate landscapes that we know and love with angular and geometric shapes creating iconographic symbols, such as a four-paned window. Now living in Portland, Gorsuch balances his time between the coast and the desert and is inspired by both. Don’t miss your opportunity to meet this talented and humbled artist at the Oregon Visions opening on Saturday, October 8 at 6:00 p.m. Enjoy tasty morsels and libations. The exhibit will be on display at the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum for a relatively short time, just through November.