M. Sjogren & C. Bustamante

Bustamante Artist Bio

A Southern Californian, Cody Bustamante relocated to the Northwest several years ago and currently teaches at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. He received his M.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from the University of California, Irvine, in 1981. His whimsical, expressionist works drew increasing attention. Bustamante’s large scale oil paintings ask more questions than they can answer-­yet demand interpretation. While the artist himself presents a reserved and quiet image, his brightly-colored, heavily textured paintings filled with Animal-like figures, reveal another side. He is a storyteller.

Bustamante is Hispanic and draws heavily from his cultural heritage for his characters, set against red-vemilion, turquoise, sky blue, and yellow backgrounds. These paintings are particularly significant as they are the result of his “exploration” of Mayan and Aztec ruins in Palenque and Yaxchilan, to study and research the ancient cultures. Bustamante toured several archeological sites with Dr. Tate, Director of the Austin Art Museum in Texas. The end product of this intense investigation among the remnants and tombs of these distant civilizations, are Bustamante’s richly painted canvases surging with the folklore and mystery of his ancestors.

He says his paintings are based on events, and as he paints, related images appear conveying the subject of his narrative on stretched-canvas. Consequently, it’s easy to discern a figure, an object or several symbols in each work. But interpreting them is another matter. While the figures are common enough, say, a bird, a rabbit, an indian–what they are doing, and why, is not as clear. A two-headed rabbit plays a violin, a big red bird flutters its bat’s wings, and a royal Aztec Indian rises from a snake form, blowing a party noise maker: what is going on? The viewer finds him or herself caught in a complex scene, often staring at tiny birds, an ice cream cone, a cup and saucer, or perhaps several XX’s and O’s, all etched into the final painting.

Sjogren Artist Statement

Margaret Sjogren Statement: why did I think this would be easy? I am an abstract expressionist painter. I deal in feelings –not just emotion, but the whole experience — the temperature and the texture. The work begins with a concept, and the image is developed through the process.

My paintings often reflect landscape and environment. Where we live (our environment) is an enormous visual tool and metaphor for ourselves –to use that which is externally visible to explore that which is within.

My preferred media is oil, often mixed with oil pastels, and often applied as a thin glaze of color for the quality of light glazing can achieve.

I work towards a certain presence or energy in the painting. Layers of brushwork, glazing and oil pastel drawing are combined into patterns that encompass the order of environment together with its sense of vital energy. Through this process of layering, scraping down, re-painting and drawing, a dialogue develops between myself and the painted surface, through which the image appears. Collage is sometimes incorporated for added texture, depth and impulse.

In the same way that character grows with time and experience, I see the surface quality of my paintings as an important aspect of their character. Elements of the process of painting remain through each layer applied, giving, I hope, a depth of experience beyond the surface.

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