Anne Gibson

Through color, mark-making, fluidity, and unexpected viewpoints, Anne Gibson conveys the force and tranquility of Central Oregon, the Pacific Ocean beaches, and the Pacific Northwest. She invites you to linger, feel the power of place, and contemplate its value in our complex world.

Art and art making have always been central to Anne’s life, but she realized her dream of being an artist circuitously. Told she must get a well-rounded degree (rather than attend art school), she earned a BA in art history at Tufts University, where she crammed as many studio art classes into her schedule as she could manage.

Anne began her professional career at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, soon becoming director of publications and marketing. She climbed to senior designer at Gilbert Design in Providence, RI, producing museum and gallery exhibition catalogs and college view books. During those years, Anne supplemented her design career with classes in drawing, typography, and printmaking at The School of Visual Arts, NY, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Rhode Island School of Design.

After growing up and working among the cultural riches of New York and New England, Anne moved to Bend in the mid-90s. The hiking trails, rivers, canyons, and lakes became her new museum – and simultaneous cathedral, inspiration, and home. Her inspirations are very much about place, but her motivation isn’t solely to paint realistically. Her paintings attempt to evoke sensations: the heat of the sun, clarity of the light, or a riot of
color.

While working as a freelance graphic designer in Bend, she raised two children and explored pastel, printmaking, and painting at the Bend Art Center (Atelier 6000) and COCC. Her work has appeared in group and solo shows in Bend, Portland, and on the Oregon coast. In April 2021, she joined Tumalo Art Co. as a member of the collective.

“We are poised between loving this landscape to death with overuse and pillaging its resources without any regard for its intrinsic worth. I hope my work inspires folks to recognize, value, and preserve what we still have. Recently I have been exploring the forces of rocks and water that shape our environment. They’ll endure. Hopefully, if as a community we make the right choices, we will too.”

Anne Gibson—beyond the art studio
Any design work Anne does now is focused on supporting arts, cultural, environmental, and social service clients. She devotes considerable hours to the non-profit she helped found, which supports kids and teens with type 1 diabetes, TID Buddy Camp. Anne is currently working on a children’s storybook to help both kids and parents feel brave in the course of living with Type 1 diabetes. Since volunteering to rebuild the Hunger Prevention Coalition of Central Oregon’s website, she also serves on that board. Anne frequents the rivers, canyons, and lakes of central Oregon with her hiking poles, her partner, and her kayak.

See Anne’s July 2023 exhibit Fractures and Interludes.