Opening Reception: Thursday April 16th, 2026. 5:00 to 6:30 pm
with an artist talk at 5:30 pm
Exhibition Dates: April 9th, 2026 until July 8th, 2026
Location: Shevlin Crossing Gallery, 2230 NW Labiche Ln, Bend, OR 97701
Click or tap here to RSVP.
Please join us for the opening reception of local artist Dustin D. Smith's exhibition, Rise & Fall on Thursday April 16, 2026 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm. Wine, beer and NA options will be served with light snacks. Rise & Fall will be on view from April 9th, 2026 until July 8th, 2026.
The Shevlin Crossing Gallery is located in the Shevlin Crossing building near Wild Roots Coffee House. This is a new gallery space and is not sshown precisely on Google Maps. If you are coming from Shevlin Park Road, take NW Crossing road at the Roundabout, then turn left onto NW LaBiche, and take an immediate left into the parking lot. The Gallery will be straight in front of you near the entry to WildRoots.
STATEMENT
Smith’s precise, yet organic abstracts seek to visualize impermanence through carefully balanced compositions, material application, orchestrated decay and erosion. Each artwork represents an information architecture that graphically documents the passage of time and the temporary nature of beings, artifacts, structures, civilizations, memories and our own existence.
BACKGROUND
Based in Bend, Oregon, visual evidence of climate change, disappearing ecosystems, and evolving geology weigh heavily on his mind and his work. Smith’s work resides in private collections on 5 continents and over two dozen countries. His work is grounded by a strong sense of design developed over three decades as an award-winning graphic designer and creative director.
RISE & FALL
In his “Rise & Fall” exhibition, Smith shares a curated selection of new work from his Schema collection, created from January 1 of this year through the start of the exhibition. He concurrently develops work in multiple collections, but his Schema collection has been his most extensively explored collection, at just under two years and over thirty paintings.
In “Rise & Fall” Smith focuses on two very different, but intrinsically connected subjects: The rapidly disappearing forest, and the seemingly eternal sun.
SCHEMA COLLECTION
Smith’s Schema work challenges our mental blueprint of the time and space where we exist.
The Schema work originally took its inspiration from degrading structures, cities, and civilizations. Due to its geometric structural design, it’s no surprise that engineers, architects, and data scientists are among his most devoted collectors.
Our Schema is a fundamental pattern of thought, representing an outline, plan or basic knowledge structure that helps us understand the world. Our Schema can be resistant to change, but the reality is that everything is in a constant state of change and decay. This slow pace of degradation in our daily lives makes it almost imperceptible. With his process of Quadrangular Degradation, Smith brings this to light with accelerated cycles of creation and erosion.
PROCESS
In his painting process, Smith breaks ephemeral objects down into a quadrangular schematic (a blueprint made of rectangles). His design elements are based on the rectangle, which is what so much of our lives, memories, time, and digestion of content are made of. He builds his paintings with pigment, then by organic means, hydrologically erodes them into almost non-existence. The plan remains, but the subject matter is almost imperceptible. The remaining bits make up the new Schema… our new perceived image of an object, or experience.
Smith chooses to leave pigment in the corners as it’s symbolic of the dust, debris, detritus that remains when a room is cleaned quickly. There is always debris in the very corners that isn’t removed with a quick swipe of the broom or mop. No matter how hard we try to forget or move on, there will always be bits and pieces of experiences, memories, trauma, etc. left in the corners of our mind. At the edges of our existence.
SUBJECT MATTER
“My subject matter is often abstract, representing bits of data (stories, images, memories, pain, trauma, etc) degrading from my consciousness into subconsciousness. Over time, it seems to slip away, but it’s only gone from the front of my mind. It never disappears completely. Matter is never created nor destroyed, it only changes form.”
Smith also pursues representational subject matter and ideas that are at some level in a state of decay.
“Often my paintings require the viewer to search for the subject, which may reveal itself in obvious or not so obvious ways. A skull, a spine, a tree, the light of the sun… There are things that have relative levels of permanence or impermanence. Our lives are incredibly short. Our bodies are fragile and quickly decay. Our skulls remain as evidence of our existence. Though they too will degrade and turn to dust. Trees give us life, emitting oxygen for us to breathe, yet we destroy them at increasingly higher rates, at our own peril. If left alone, they keep us alive, yet outlive us exponentially. At our whims or the whims of climate change, they can burst into flame and be reduced to ash in moments. Even the sun, the most permanent thing in our universe… halfway through its 10 billion year lifespan, will some day cease to light the sky.”
YOU'RE INVITED
Please join us for the opening reception of local artist Dustin D. Smith's exhibition, Rise & Fall on Thursday April 16, 2026 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm. Rise & Fall will be on view from April 9th, 2026 until July 8th, 2026.