My New Blue Friends in Governor’s Office, July 7

Corvallis artist Julie Green will exhibit “My New Blue Friends” in the Governor’s Office, in the Capitol Building in Salem, July 7 through Sept. 7. “My New Blue Friends” consists of air-brushed egg tempura paintings depicting abstractions of everyday foods. Inspired by blue-flow ceramics, a technique in which the blue glaze was deliberately blurred, the series presents softly abstracted repetitive shapes in fluctuating tones of blue: a contemporary take on a traditional decorative art form. Green is best-known for her ongoing 16-year project “The Last Supper,” which depicts meal requests of U.S. death-row inmates painted in cobalt blue mineral paint on second-hand plates. “My New Blue Friends” is an oblique response to “The Last Supper,” extending Green’s exploration of food while providing a lighter and less literal interpretation of the subject. Born in Japan, Green has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, and has been a recipient of honors and awards including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, an ArtPrize Juror’s Choice Award and a 2016 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship. She has been featured in The New York Times, a Whole Foods mini-documentary, National Public Radio, Ceramics Monthly and Gastronomica, and her egg tempera is included in the seventh edition of “A World of Art,” published by Prentice Hall. Green is a Professor of Art at Oregon State University and is represented by Upfor in Portland. The Art in the Governor’s Office Program honors selected artists in Oregon with exhibitions in the reception area of the Governor’s Office in the State Capitol. Artists are nominated by a statewide committee of arts professionals who consider artists representing the breadth and diversity of artistic practice across Oregon, and are then selected by the Arts Commission with the participation of the Governor’s Office. Only professional, living Oregon artists are considered and an exhibit in the Governor’s office is considered a “once in a lifetime” honor. Artists whose work has previously been shown in the Governor’s office include Henk Pander, Michele Russo, Manuel Izquierdo, James Lavadour, Margot Thompson, Gordon Gilkey and Yuji Hiratsuka.