“These paintings are an attempt to hold on to something beautiful and briefly illuminated before it vanishes.” -Laurel Bustamante

Lora Schlesinger’s East Gallery presents The Listening Stillness a series of small-scaled paintings by Laurel Bustamante. Influenced by Persian miniatures, Laurel sees her paintings as mini dioramas of dreams inhabited by little creatures and imaginative birds that drift in and out of her field of vision. Floating islands of flora and fauna comprise chimerical landscapes rendered with tiny brushstrokes of saturated gouache. These charming and highly rendered works magnify the details of creatures, flowers and trees that one would normally overlook and ignore, creating paintings that feel larger than their diminutive size. Laurel Bustamante received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Oregon University, Summa Cum Laude. In 2013, she was the finalist for the Portland Art Museum Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, in Portland Oregon. She was awarded the Crater Lake National Park Artist Residency in 2001 and the Artist on Location Project in Antilles, Netherlands in 2000.

Jardin de Arpolitos, 2012, gouache on panel, 7 x 5”

Oasis, 2014, gouache on panel, 8 x 5-1/2”

Arbolitos, 2012, gouache& acrylic on panel, 7 x 5”

Between Light and Dark, 2014, gouache on panel, 5 x 7”

Last Poem, 2014, gouache on paper, 6 x 3-1/2”

Veridian Spring, 2014, gouache on paper, 9-1/2 x 4”

Soft Black Night, 2010, gouache & acrylic on panel, 17-1/2 x 15” – fr.

Floating Garden to the East, 2014, gouache on paper, 9 x 4”

Lost Garden 9, 2013, acrylic & gouache on panel, 10 x 8”

Blue Voyage, 2010, gouache & acrylic on panel, 12 x 10” – fr.

Indigo Nightbird, 2010, gouache & acrylic on panel, 10-1/2 x 12” – fr.

Laurel Bustamante EDUCATION 1999 BFA, Southern Oregon University (summa cum laude) 1986 San Francisco State University SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 The Listening Stillness, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2013 Lost Gardens, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2011 Nightbirds, REM Gallery, San Antonio, TX 2010 Birds, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, 0R 2009 Nocturnes in India, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2001 Connections: Laurel Engel & Eileen Bowie, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 2000 Curaçao: To Return to the Sea, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Signals from a New Order, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 1999 New Work, Thorndike Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 1999 Heresy, Central Art Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 1993 Lifeblood, Los Medanos Gallery, Los Medanos College, Pittsburg, CA GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 New Work by Gallery Artists, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2012 Group Exhibition: Gallery Artists, Augen Gallery, Portland, OR 2012 Summer Group Show, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2012 Smalls, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2010 Small Works, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2009 The Toy Show, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2002 Crater Lake Centennial Exhibition, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR 2001 Abstraction 2001, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2001 Taste of Ashland, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Four Ashland Artists, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 2000 Southern Oregon University Alumni, Center for the Visual Arts, Ashland, OR 2000 Introductions, Davis and Cline Gallery, Ashland, OR 1999 Exposicion Grafica Entre Dos Paises, Sala Polivalente, University of Guanajuato, GTO, Mexico 1998 Recent Graduates ‘98, Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR 1998 Tidal Wave, Dorothy Stolp Theatre Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR

1997 The Aids Show, The OtherArt Gallery, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR 1997 En Route, Lavern Krause Gallery, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 1995 The Mask Show, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR 1993 Contemporary Collections on Loan, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IA 1992 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1992 Small Paintings, Joan Roebuck Gallery, Lafayette, CA 1991 Fifth Annual Emeryville Art Exhibition, Emeryville, CA; Regina Almaguer, curator 1991 Kala Institute Annual Art Exhibition, Berkeley, CA 1989 Celebration of the Arts 1989, 3rd Annual Emeryville Art Exhibition, Emeryville, CA, Carl Worth, curator 1988 Art: The Other Industry, Emeryville Art Exhibition, Emeryville, CA; 1987 Four Painters, Merry the Dog Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1987 Emeryville 1st Annual Art Exhibition, Emeryville, CA, Sidra Stitch, curator AWARDS AND ARTIST RESIDENCIES 2013 Finalist, Portland Art Museum Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Portland, OR 2001 Crater Lake National Park Artists in Residence Program, Crater Lake, Oregon 2000 Artist on Location Project, (residency) Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles BIBLIOGRAPHY Speer, Richard, “Laurel Bustamante: Lost Gardens,” Willamette Week, Portland, OR (Apr. 2013) “Laurel Bustamante Presents, “Lost Gardens,” Editor’s Pick, Portland Monthly Magazine, (Apr. 2013) “Museum Announces Artists for Contemporary Northwest Art Awards: Q&A with Curator Bonnie Laing- -Malcolmson” Portal: Portland Art Museum Magazine, Vol, 2, Issue 2, (January 2013); 15 “Laurel Bustamante at Lora Schlesinger Gallery,” Coagula Art Journal, Huntington Beach, CA (Sept. 2012) Aldous, Vickie., “Birds in the Night,” Ashland Daily Tidings, Ashland, OR (October 2010); 4 Vandenberg, Julie., “The Work of Laurel Bustamante,” Sneak Preview, Ashland, OR (October 1010) 7 Zellen, Jody, “Lora Schlesinger Gallery,” Artscene, Los Angeles, CA (September 2009); 15 Bayard, B. Allen., “Artist on Location Project,” The Ashland Daily Tidings, Ashland, OR (September 2000) 3 Almaguer, Regina, “1991 Fifth Annual Emeryville Exhibition of Art,” (Cat.) Bachus Press, Inc., Berkeley, CA,

(October 1991) 14 Crohn, Jennifer, “Art as a Civic Virtue,” The East Bay Guardian, Oakland, CA (November 1991); 51 Worth, Carl, “Emeryville Celebration of the Arts 1989: 3rd Annual Art Exhibition:“Art, the Other Industry,” (Cat. Ill.) Photon Press, Emeryville, CA (1989); 10 Tomilson, Robert, “Art, the Other Industry: Emeryville Exhibition 88” (Cat. Ill.) Albany Press, Albany, CA (1988); 6 Tomilson, Robert, “Emeryville 1st Annual Art Exhibition: Art, the Other Industry” (Cat. Ill.) Albany Press, Albany, CA (1987); 12 COLLECTIONS Timeworks, San Francisco, California Avila Beach Hotel, Curaçao, Netherlands, Antilles Private collections in New York, California, Oregon, Texas, North Carolina, and New Mexico