(Artwork above: Not One More by Mary Medrano)

The Oxford Hotel presents Mary Medrano’s colorful acrylic paintings Feathers and Tails, continuing through December 28. The hotel invites the public to the champagne opening on First Friday, December 7 from 5:30-7:30pm.

Medrano notes that painting is her favorite method of storytelling. She adds, “It’s also effective in expressing thoughts and emotions.” With inspiration from nature, she finds that birds’ unique personalities lend readily to interpretation.

From a family who spent summers camping and canoeing, bird watching was a favored activity for the artist as a girl. With a predilection for composing stories, the artist naturally found birds’ behaviors entertaining and almost always amusing.

Later as an adult, her artistic abilities enabled her to borrow recognizable characteristics of birds and to transform these into imaginary avian personality traits. Thus, based on her impressions and emotive experiences in nature, especially in the woods of Central Oregon, Medrano began to paint imaginary birds, each with their own visual story.

The artist recently noted with humor that cats have suddenly also appeared in her “studio full of birds.” The cats, over scale in size with large, intensely focused yellow eyes and playfully painted designs on their coats, peaceably reside alongside the spirited birds on studio walls (and at the Oxford exhibit).

Billye Turner, art consultant, coordinates the Oxford Hotel exhibition schedule with additional information at 503-780-2828 or billyeturner@bendnet.com.