| Robert Canaga believes "Art is intensely personal, both for the artist and for the art lover. The production of a work of art is a journey through a cacophony of influences which the artist sorts through and presents from an interior place." Only when a work is completed can it be looked at from outside, and when a viewer fells a strong connection with that work, the view is of something larger than the image, larger than any of the elements which were brought together to make the work.
Canaga believes passionately that the value of art can be measured only by one's reaction to it. Never one to play it safe, Canaga is carving a niche for himself by "giving people permission to love the artwork they are most drawn to." - in this case, by providing a venue for what may not be readily available in a particular community. To that end, he provides a venue for objective (representational) artwork in Portland, a market which focuses primarily on non-objective styles, and on the other hand, his gallery in Eugene presents large format work in a small-format community.
Robert Canaga, a man who believes in exploring the edges, learning how far something can go, tries to help people feel it is okay to like what they like. "I believe that it is not my place to
tell people what they should like. Each moment carries the seeds of infinite possibility - allowing people their artistic passions can only enrich the future."
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This approach to art has grown from rich and complex life experience. Canaga is a Viet Nam
veteran and a survivor of three near death experiences, a man who has lived all over the world in the course of a working life which finally brought him back, at the age of forty, to his childhood interest in
art. A painter/printmaker as well as a teacher, he opened a new door in his life with the inauguration of two art galleries, in Portland and Eugene, Oregon.
He is the
Curator of
