(Photo courtesy of Flying Horse Gallery)
The Flying Horse Gallery is a new family and artist owned stop for art in Sisters. The gallery is run by a father, mother and daughter trio; Brad and Sloane are the resident father-daughter artists, while the background is managed by Dale.
The family owning the gallery is steeped in a legacy of art. Brad’s background is as an architect and, like many architects, he has a skilled hand for drawing and sketching. Sloane, like her mother Dale, started drawing and creating art as soon as she could hold a pencil. In 1993, when Sloane was just 5 years old, Brad and Sloane decided to have father-daughter painting day as a way for them to spend time together.
“As soon as Brad finished his very first painting, it was obvious that Brad was a natural and his art career immediately took off in the Philadelphia area,” said Dale. “We have always had a shared penchant for art with a little twist and a bit of whimsy. We respond to art that is brave enough to explore new worlds, is provocative, or evokes an emotional connection. This shared aesthetic, our love of creating and the support we give one another (that includes some criticism at times) creates a strong bond in our family.”
The family had always planned on living near one another, the question was just where Sloane wanted to plant her roots. In 2020, Sloane moved to Bend from San Francisco, and her parents followed, settling down in Sisters. After one year, Brad and Dale were board members of the Sisters Art Association, while Sloane was planning a move to Sisters with her husband.
With the family finally all together, an old dream about owning a small, art-related business as a family began to pop back up, “Now that Brad and Dale were retired and the family was in the same community, the idea started to take root and seemed worth consideration,”
said Sloane.
There are multiple factors that contributed to the opening of the gallery, but a primary one lies in Sisters already being a very art-forward community. However, the family noticed a vacuum when it came to any art considered fantasy, whimsical or something similar.
Central Oregon is a beautiful place, and our art reflects that; whether someone is inspired to become a landscape artist by growing up here, or they move here intentionally to seek inspiration from the land, our region attracts a large amount of skilled landscape artists. In a Western community like Sisters, much of the art also leans towards cowboy and Americana themes.
Brad, as an artist that focuses on nostalgic/Americana themes like old gas stations, drive-in theaters with classic pick-up trucks, retro signage and typewriters, found plenty of inspiration in an art scene that already showed itself to be welcoming to work like his. Sloane, however, is an artist that focuses on the fantastical and whimsical. From depictions of fictional warriors alongside their animal companions to Roswell-esque paintings of UFOs flying over the arid high desert landscape, Sloane’s art is experimental in a community like Sisters. However, after a very warm reception, the family has discovered that there is an unfulfilled desire in the community for art that is fantastic and whimsical.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the art created by Sloane and her father Brad shares a common theme of warmth and comfort. For Brad, it lies in his nostalgic depictions of simpler times, often to the backdrop of a sunset, casting warm light and long shadows within his art. His work invokes a familiar feeling of comfort, like you’re a kid again, buckled up in the back seat, stopping for gas under the big green dinosaur at a Sinclair Station on a long road trip to a new adventure.
Sloane’s work incorporates a similar warmth and feeling of familiarity. From a palette perspective, she also works with warm tones, including similar lighting and sunsets. From there however, her ability to draw out comfort from the viewer lies in her ability to pull the viewer into a fantasy world. Fantasy is a genre built on, well, fantasy; the fantasy of being in another world, of living another life, of escaping to another reality. Fantasy work, like Sloane’s, can often feel familiar and cozy because it aims to create a world that the viewer wants to escape into.
All together, walking into The Flying Horse Gallery invokes feelings of comfort, warmth, and welcoming. For a limited time, the gallery is hosting a Game of Thrones exhibit, featuring the newly (and locally) designed softcovers, and the original linocut prints that made them. The extraordinary concepts and linocut prints were created by the talented local linocut artist Mark Seekins and Tim Green (art director from Faceout Studio Book Design), who worked directly with George R.R. Martin’s team. The gallery has access to the only prints of their kind that are numbered and signed by the artists and George R.R. Martin, himself.
The Flying Horse gallery is a welcome addition that shakes up and inspires the local art scene.