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Gumpert with "Next World" — 48 x 60 in. — oil & mixed media
In June/July, 2018, Gallery 903 featured abstract artist Chuck Gumpert. His mixed media abstract works capture color and light.
CHUCK GUMPERT INTERVIEW
903: Tell us about your process. How has it changed over the years?
CG: I came from a graphic design and photo-collage background, so I think my paintings have always been about striving to achieve the vibrant glow and lush translucency of a digital image on a screen. I work in layers, and often bounce between several canvases at once. I pride myself in the fact that I’m not confined by formula or habit, but have created a body of work that shares a common thread and communicates.
903: Much of your work has personal themes. How does real life shape your work?
CG: The bold, colorful, and energetic nature of my abstract work is indeed an expression of my inner self. It’s not always apparent what I subconsciously tapped into in the moments of creation of any one piece. Each new painting is a culmination of forty-plus years of experiences, emotions and observations — and a further exploration into my imagination, my memory and my heart.
My hope is, that in my abstraction, viewers will have a unique personal experience, enjoying a moment of their own creativity to see or feel whatever flows through the art to them. I thoroughly enjoy when my art has the power to awaken subjective memories or unconscious associations
903: All of your work is mixed media. What mediums do you use? Do you use them all in each painting?
CG: In addition to acrylic and oil paints, I’ve always been experimental in employing a variety of media and techniques to achieve that “digital” light. I don’t always use every medium in each painting, each piece progresses very organically. In recent years, I’ve enjoyed pushing even further — adding new textures and collage elements. I’ve recently studied screen printing, and hope to figure out how to include screened imagery in my abstraction.
903: You clearly love color. How do you choose your palettes?
CG: I begin most paintings with a “digital study” — which can be anything from a photo of something in nature, to a figure, to a detail shot of a particularly yummy section of one of my own paintings. I coerce that imagery digitally to create a pleasing abstract composition and palette as a starting point, and then re-interpret that on the canvas. The color mixing often happens very much on the fly, again striving to avoid the formulaic — sometimes departing dramatically from the digital study!
Portland International Airport Art Blog
Chuck Gumpert, Beyond Ordinary Experience, August 15, 2013 – August 15, 2014
Posted on May 21, 2014 by Gretacooks
I first saw Chuck Gumpert’s work at the DragonFire Gallery in Cannon Beach about 5 years ago. Actually, it was my son who pointed it out. We were both immediately struck by his subtle, muted palette accentuated by bright, deep areas of color. The work we saw at the time was figurative – representing both no one and everyone, simultaneously.
Since then, I’ve seen a lot more of Chuck’s work. Some is figurative, some isn’t. But the overall impression is the same: this man understands movement and the interplay of people in public spaces. It just made sense to invite him to create a site-specific piece about movement for PDX.
Art soars as part PDX's Art and Entertainment Program (Photo essay)
Portland Business Journal — Mar 21, 2014
Cathy Cheney, Staff Photographer
This bigger-than- life painting is on display in the North ticket lobby. “Beyond Ordinary Experience’ is an installation designed specifically for this large wall space by artist Chuck Gumpert. “My quest is to portray a sort of transcendent character in a setting that could be anywhere in the world,” Gumpert reflects.
Portland International Airport isn't the worst place to wait out a flight delay.
There's a bevy of great food places, such as the Laurelwood brewery and Beaverton Bakery, at which one can sate themselves on goodies. The arrival and departure watching from the large concourse windows isn't bad. And there's always a fair amount of window shopping to be had at places like Columbia Sportswear and Powell's.
Now, PDX has something else to keep passengers occupied. The Port of Portland's Arts & Entertainment program, which showcases artists and musicians at the airport, has refreshed itself with several new permanent and temporary displays. The airport chose participating artists on whether their presence contributes to a "peaceful, relaxing environment for travelers."
Several of my shots appear in the current Portland Business Journal, which hits the streets today.
CLICK HERE for more information about my enormous figurative piece — "Beyond Ordinary Experience", 134" x 168", acrylic and mixed media — on display in Portland International Airport (PDX), North Ticketing Lobby through August 15, 2014
Another 3 seconds of "fame"
on IFC's Portlandia April 24, 2014 — a scene shot at PDX airport caught my name in pixels and no more than a glimpse of "Beyond Ordinary Experience" — fun nonetheless...
previously on Portlandia:
The February, 2014 season premiere included a sketch about Kath and Dave finding a 15-minute parking spot and attempting to cram all their downtown Portland obligations into that short time... including a 10-second visit to a "museum" (portrayed handsomely by Gallery 903 and a wee peek of some Chuck Gumpert Fine Art) — kinda surreal...
"Explore the Pearl" Magazine
October 2013 issue highlights Portland's NW Davis Street in the Pearl District, and features a blurb/photo about Gallery 903 and my PDX airport project...
New apartment complex a test of light-rail's lure
The Station at Othello Park is just the kind of redevelopment Seattle planners and politicians envisioned more than a decade ago,
when they decided to run light rail down Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
By Eric Pryne Seattle Times business reporter
Alan Anderson sold his car the same weekend he moved into his new apartment last month. With a train only steps from his front door, he figured he didn't really need one anymore.
"I don't miss it at all," he says unequivocally.
Anderson's new home is a studio in the Station at Othello Park, a just-completed complex in Southeast Seattle that may be the city's most closely watched new apartment project.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES
It's right across the street from Sound Transit's Othello Link light-rail station. If the project shows that rail will draw new residents to a corner of Seattle that for-profit developers have long ignored, more transit-oriented projects could follow.
"Everybody's got their eye on it," says Jon Hallgrimson, an apartment broker at CB Richard Ellis.
It's the kind of redevelopment planners and politicians envisioned more than a decade ago, when they decided to run light rail down Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, one of the city's poorest, most neglected, most ethnically diverse corridors. At seven stories, the Station at Othello Park is the tallest, most imposing building in the Othello neighborhood. From the hot tub on the rooftop deck you can see Mount Rainier, downtown skyscrapers and slices of Lake Washington.
The project features touches usually found in apartment complexes in more upscale parts of town: granite countertops, original art, Wi-Fi in the common areas.
Nothing like it has been built in Southeast Seattle before, says Tom Cain of Apartment Insights Washington, a research firm — "and it's only there because of the light rail." Not surprisingly, the train figures heavily in developer Othello Partners' marketing campaign to fill the building's 351 apartments. "Ditch your car!" its website proclaims. "Our No. 1, key amenity is the light-rail station," says Steve Rauf, the firm's president and chief executive officer. "You're saving time. You're saving money." That pitch helped lure Alan Anderson. Rauf isn't the only developer who wonders how many more renters like him are out there.
Texas partner
Sound Transit opened the Link light-rail line from downtown to the airport in 2009. The Station at Othello Park broke ground that same year — a time few other projects were getting started — largely because Rauf found a partner with deep pockets: Texas-based USAA Real Estate, subsidiary of a Fortune 500 insurance and financial-services company. Tenants started moving into the building in late March. Rauf says about 40 apartments have been leased, for rents ranging from about $900 to $2,000.
The light-rail station isn't the only reason tenants have chosen the project. The state Department of Services for the Blind, for instance, is leasing six two-bedroom units to house students enrolled in independent-living and job-training programs in nearby Columbia City. The apartment complex has Braille labels on the doors and other features that cater to the blind and others with disabilities, said Keiko Namekata, an agency program manager. "There's just nothing else in this area," she said. "It seems they really are inviting diversity."
Alan Anderson, 27, who moved to Seattle from Texas last year, says he was attracted to the building in part by its many green features. Still, the light-rail station is what sets the Station at Othello Park apart. Anderson works as an accountant in Pioneer Square, an 18-minute train ride from Othello. He says that's a much shorter commute than the bus he used to ride from his old apartment in Northgate. He figures that, by giving up his car, he's saving more than $1,000 a year just on insurance and parking. And he has a Zipcar membership for when he does need to drive.
Bob Anderson — no relation to Alan — was among the building's first residents. He's lived without a car for several years, but the prospect of a shorter commute attracted him — and Othello Partners sealed the deal with a $300 Orca card, good for train, bus or ferry fares. Anderson, 43, works at Starbucks' Sodo headquarters. The train ride from Othello to Link's Sodo Station takes 12 minutes. Even with a half-mile walk to the office, Anderson figures he goes door-to-door in 25 minutes or less. That compares with a 50-minute bus commute from his old home in Ballard. "What I particularly like is the regularity of it," Anderson says of light rail. "During the peaks there's a train every 7 ½ minutes." He takes light rail to the airport, to see movies downtown with friends, to shop for groceries in Mount Baker. Anderson says he like his new one-bedroom apartment and the building's amenities. Still, he says, "if they put this building somewhere that wasn't on light rail, I probably wouldn't have chosen it."
Apartment surge
Other developers will judge the Station at Othello Park's success by how much rent it can charge and how quickly it fills up. A new project is doing well if it leases 20 apartments a month, researcher Cain says. By that measure, the Station is right on target.
As for apartment rents, Cain says, the Othello project is charging about 40 percent more per square foot than older buildings in the Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill and the Central District — but about 12 percent less than the average rent at similar new buildings on Capitol Hill and other neighborhoods closer to downtown. From a landlord's perspective, the Seattle apartment market is on the upswing. Vacancies are falling, rents are rising and developers are rushing to build more units as they anticipate a surge in demand fueled by young adults. "I don't know if there's been a better time to be in the apartment industry than right now," George Petrie, CEO of Goodman Real Estate, a major apartment developer, told a real-estate forum this week.
But Southeast Seattle is a new frontier for the industry. Before the Station at Othello Park, "that area hadn't seen any conventional [for-profit] new construction in many years," Cain says. Harbor Properties plans to break ground this fall on Greenhouse, a 124-unit project in Columbia City, four blocks from that neighborhood's light-rail station. But it is an exception. Other developers haven't pulled the trigger yet.
The Seattle Housing Authority, for instance, has been trying on-and-off for years to sell sites it owns near the Othello and Columbia City stations for market-rate residential/ retail development. Tentative deals with developers Unico Properties and Opus Northwest fell through when the economy tanked. And now? "I have heard lots of developers say they are waiting to see how the Station at Othello Park does," said Al Levine, the authority's deputy director.
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