The Gunnar Nordstrom Gallery is pleased to offer the new paintings by two well known Northwest painters Mike Smith and Lee Bogle.  

Mike Smith was born in 1942 in Portland, Oregon, and spent his childhood growing up in Vancouver,Washington, and the Puget Sound area. He now resides in Camas Washington, a small pulp and paper community located on the shores of the Columbia River.

He graduated from the University of Portland with a degree in English Literature. Smith began drawing and sculpting at the age of two, after an interlude of baseball, he became a serious full-time artist at the age of twenty-five. He supported himself doing graphic design and other commercial art endeavors while pursuing his fine art career.

He has tried to abandon any "school" of painting and uses an autobiographical approach. His subjects are mostly found in his backyard or around the neighborhood in which he lives. His dogs, the cat, his rowboat, and ducks in his pond, are all included in the bright watercolors of his paintings. He also sculpts in bronze, paints in oils and does silk screen prints.

Smith says, "People always want to know the meaning of my work and where I get my ideas from. My work is simply about the people and places and animals I love. Images, unlike the written word, do not dictate to you. After twenty-five years of painting almost every day, it has become my world." It is fun-filled, colorful, and full of life.

Lee Bogle is a Kirkland resident, but don't let the close proximity to this gallery be any less meaningful than if he lived thousands of miles away. Bogle is a successful painter in the art industry and shows his work though out the US and Canada and has been printed, published and branded on a variety of products that use his romantic and beautiful figures. Whether it be Native Americans, or an elegant Heron stepping into a marsh, Bogle's images are delicate and thoughtful in their rendering and unique painting style.

Bogle's technical skills as a draftsman are evident in his renderings of the human figure. He combines vivid realistic detail with the expressive qualities of abstraction. One of Bogle's hallmarks is the serenity he instills in each of his images. Another is the intricacies he manages with his medium, whether it be watercolor, oil or pastel.

Bogle enjoys creating many of his images with pastels on a handmade bark paper. The paper has very textured surface which portrays an aged and primitive quality and lends itself well to Bogle's style.