Sunriver Resort Lodge Betty Gray Gallery joins the Traditions celebration featuring acrylic images by Susan Busik in the upper gallery and oil landscapes by Janice Druian in the lower gallery. The show continues through the 2016 New Year celebrations.
A Bend resident, Busik grew up in Sisters. Influenced in her appreciation of art by parents who owned an art gallery, she studied in a local weaving class in the ‘70s. Becoming proficient, she sold weavings in Portland and Lincoln City.
Later, the artist later began to stage homes, needing abstract pieces for walls. Not readily available in the area, she created her own large abstracts. Self-taught and developing skills through experience, her art met with success both in the staged homes and sales at Tiger Lily, a Bend gallery.
Seeking the next challenge, the artist successfully introduced herself to acrylic brush work on canvas drawing upon her experience growing up on a ranch for subjects. Then, learning of her Mexican heritage in her 40’s, Busik sought to connect with her roots. Her personal interests directed her portrayal of the unseen, the spiritual in nature. Thus, inspiration led her to portray a sense of transcendence experienced when, living in this known reality, one views an object that encourages experiencing an unknown or “magical reality.”
She began painting this magical reality noted in Mexican folk art and characterized in the writing of noted Hispanic authors such as Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Showing at Sunriver Lodge, her art of over-scale, brightly glowing dahlias, birds, child-like horses and other subjects suggests the traditional, intricate designs of Mexican imagery blended with Native American art.
Additionally, she exhibits her popular and unique magical reality forest scenes, often resembling that of Hummingbird Forest with lush foregrounds of moss covered trees, chartreuse grasses, delicate flowers, and flying fuchsia and pink-breasted hummingbirds. A background of turquoise and lavender, illuminated by an over-scale full moon with spirals and curls of dots, representing spirit, drifting downward completes the image. Captivating viewers, Busik’s art thus pays a personal tribute to her heritage, to “my Grandmother’s art.”
In the lower gallery, Druian shows small oil landscapes of the West. Crediting the influence of Maynard Dixon, famed western painter, her art depicts the vastness and sense of freedom of the West.
The artist’s roots run deep in the region from family on the Oregon Trail in 1852 to her current residence over the Deschutes Canyon with limitless views of the High Desert. Her art appeared in exhibitions at the Yosemite Museum in the national park, at Arizona’s Desert Caballeros Museum and others.
Sunriver Resort invites the public to the exhibition during Lodge hours. Billye Turner organizes the Sunriver Resort Lodge art exhibits with info at 503-780-2828 or billyeturner@bendnet.com