(2 inches depth)
Claire Burbridge and Tallmadge Doyle:
Luminous Worlds
September 2 - October 10, 2026
Artist remarks with Claire Burbridge and Tallmadge Doyle: Friday, Sep 4th at 4:30 pm
Reception to follow during First Friday Artwalk, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Karin Clarke Gallery is pleased to present an exhibit by two highly accomplished Oregon artists whose work is impacted by the natural world around them. Claire Burbridge and Tallmadge Doyle carefully observe their environments with an almost scientific eye, creating unique works that are deeply poetic and masterful in their depictions of the patterns in nature.
For the last 16 years, Claire Burbridge has lived in the hills of Ashland, Oregon where she gains much of her inspiration. Abstract forms rendered in an almost pointillist approach result in meticulously realized, large scale paintings. Locally, she is remembered for her 2020 solo show at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Pathways to the Invisible.
With her newest work, she’s focused on the luminosity of transitions in daylight, especially at dusk. The paintings are what she calls “emotional memories” of these times of day, rather than capturing a landscape like a plein air or realist artist would. She uses colors true to what she sees in the natural light. Her largest works change color and appear different depending on how they are lit, she explains. Her mastery of color combinations and keen awareness of the local atmosphere truly make her work unique. “Something unexplainable happens,” she says, “when we blend in and become part of nature.”
Born in London, raised between the west coast of Scotland and rural Somerset, Burbridge studied Fine Art and History of Art at Oxford University (BA, 1993) and earned an MA in printmaking from the Camberwell College of Arts (1995). Burbridge's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in many corporate, museum, public, and private collections, including nearly a dozen pieces purchased by the State of Oregon. Her next major exhibit will be a solo show at the prestigious Nancy Toomey Fine Art Gallery in San Francisco next year.
Tallmadge Doyle is best known as a printmaker, but in this new work she’s pivoted almost entirely to painting. Richly layered, each piece uses a variety of techniques and mediums like india ink, watercolor, acrylic, and oil. Those who have followed her long career will see these exciting new works as a synthesis of much of what she’s explored over the past few decades in her career.
Like Burbridge, Doyle is deeply impacted by her surroundings, specifically the Oregon Coast near the Cascade Head Biosphere Marine Reserve. “I watch the boundaries of land and water constantly changing with the tides, atmospheric shifts, and the stars appearing in the dark night sky. This location allows me to be present to water and sky, to absorb and reflect their cyclical changes into my work.”
The resulting works she accurately describes as “layered, translucent surfaces that echo the experience of peering through water or through the deep gaseous atmosphere of outer space.”
Born in New York City and now based in Eugene, Doyle received her BFA (1983) from the Cleveland Art Institute and an MFA (1993) from University of Oregon. Her work has been exhibited in over 150 national and international exhibitions and is held in more than 30 public collections in Europe, Asia and North America. She has been awarded numerous artist residencies including Ucross, Kingsbrae International Residency, Playa, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and Brush Creek.
Both artists will speak about their work at 4:30 pm on Friday, September 4th, and a reception will follow as part of First Friday Artwalk.
