“Dreams: Recent Paintings” by Jon Colburn Exhibit Opens

The exhibit, Dreams, recent paintings by Salem artist Jon Colburn, opened in the Level 2 Gallery in the Salem Convention Center. The show, open now, was accompanied by a companion show in the Art Hall at the Salem Public Library that opened on February 28. Shows at both locations run until June 23, 2023. 

Jon Colburn’s life and art are rooted equally in his native Oregon and in his extensive travels over almost five decades.  Speaking of his work, Colburn noted, “These paintings are always made strictly from imagination or memory. They are not drawn or painted from observation. Painting, is then, for me, closer to dream rather than study, rendering, or description.” 

Colburn was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon in 1934 and grew up in Portland. After spending a year at Portland State College, he received a full scholarship to attend the (Portland) Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art, part of Willamette University) studying with Oregon modernists Michele Russo, George Johanson, William Givler, and Louis Bunce, among others. He graduated with a major in painting in 1961. In 1966, he was awarded a D.A.A.D (German Academic Exchange Service) Fellowship to study painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in Germany. Returning to the United States in 1967, he lived in New York City for fourteen years, working in the studio of noted illustrator James McMullen, then moved back to Paris.  He returned to Portland, “a city that’s in my blood”, in 1994, where he lived until he moved to Salem in 2007, where he still lives and paints daily. 

Sixty years into his explorations, Colburn still seeks expression and style that goes beyond just the love of painting to find a view of the world through its realities and dreams.