‘Three Decades’ a double feature of Hansen’s best

Gaylen Hansen is a prolific painter of engaging characters, vibrant colors and tall tales.

A retrospective of his work, “Gaylen Hansen: Three Decades of Paintings,” opens in two Inland Northwest locations this weekend.

One section opens Friday at the Washington State University Museum of Art; the other opens Saturday at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

Together the two venues feature more than 70 oil paintings by the 85-year-old Hansen, who has made rural Eastern Washington his home for 50 years.

The regionalist painter is a masterful storyteller who draws inspiration for his surreal events from his environment: the wildlife, people and rolling hills of the Palouse.

Riding herd over much of this magical countryside is the Kernal, a bearded frontiersman often identified as Hansen’s alter ego. Red dogs, flying fish, tulips, bison, magpies and grasshoppers frequently join in these imaginative escapades.

“His work is a perfect example of the wonderful resources of distinction we have right here in our own backyard,” says WSU museum director Chris Bruce in a news release.

“He has created that most difficult of all artistic accomplishments – combining a serious, edgy painting style with humor and personal narratives that allow both art connoisseurs and everyday folk to enjoy and appreciate his art,” says Bruce.

Although Hansen gathers material for his work from the Palouse, his appeal is universal.

He has exhibited in Berlin, Singapore, Beijing, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. His paintings are in numerous public and private collections, and he has received several prestigious honors, including the 1989 Governor’s Award from the state of Washington and a 2001/2002 Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Artists.

His life and work span a vast territory: a childhood on his grandparents’ farm in northern Utah, a stint in New York City, 25 years teaching at Washington State University and a marriage to Canadian artist Heidi Oberheide.

One of his WSU students, Gary Larson, the renowned cartoonist and creator of “The Far Side” comic panel, writes warmly of Hansen and his work in the book that accompanies the exhibition.

Larson acknowledges that he loves Hansen’s great imagination, his ability to surprise and his technique. But as a cartoonist, he most admires Hansen’s ability to draw masterful shapes.

“When I look at any one of his paintings and try to imagine it without the color and textures,” says Larson, “… I’m simply amazed at what still remains: wonderful, pleasing, interesting shapes.”

Hansen’s strong, iconic shapes – the magpies, grasshoppers and buffalo – fill his canvases. He does not simply render a horse, fish or wolf, he gives them character.

“Gaylen really looks at all creatures as beautiful,” says Keith Wells, museum curator and organizer of the exhibition. “He doesn’t just paint a grasshopper; he paints a grasshopper with an attitude.”

In “Kernal Riding Grasshopper,” a 12-foot-long grasshopper takes the Kernal on a flying romp through space.

“There is no meanness in Gaylen’s paintings,” says Wells. “There is only a life-affirming, gentle nature with which he views the world.”

The 1994 still life “Bison, Fish & Tulip” features three odd-sized images juxtaposed upside-down. In a 2005 interview for the exhibition book, Wells asks Hansen about the recurring composition he uses in that work and in other paintings.

“I like things pushed up against each other,” says Hansen.

“Here, I have these three blobs of color – along the left margin and at the right of the painting, too,” he says. “I don’t know why I do that, but a lot of my paintings have a submotif. I can’t see the painting without them, that’s for sure. I have done a number of paintings with this upside-down theme.”

Hansen has done hundreds of other paintings with other themes.

“He is one of the most productive artists I know,” says Wells. “His conviction to what he does is incomparable.

“There are a lot of artists out there,” continues Wells, “but few live the dream life of an artist and just paint the things that matter to him. That is a beautiful way to work.”

Other galleries

•Five Idaho artists are showing recent work in Post Falls’ Old Church Arts and Cultural Center through Feb. 26.

“Painters Winter Harmony” includes oil paintings of winter landscapes, florals and romantic still lifes of musical instruments.

The artists are Suzanne Jewell of Post Falls; Pat Parsons of Spirit Lake; and Chelsea Cordova, Jackie Jewett and Sharon Mille of Coeur d’Alene.

Meet the artists and watch as they paint on Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the center at Fourth and William streets in Post Falls.

•A new show is running through April 8 in the Above the Rim Gallery in Moscow, Idaho.

The work includes pen and ink drawings by Lorraine Ashland and watercolors by Donna Bradberry, Flip Kleffner and Malcolm Renfrew.

The gallery is at 513 N. Main St., upstairs in Paradise Creek Bicycles.