Ceramic artist Dews and painter Robert Koch bring imagined and often eccentric scenarios to life. In this world the lines between animals and humans blur and fiction and fantasy rule.

Dews received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984. Though ceramics was started as a child and continued through schooling, getting a degree in ceramic sculpture did not take a direct route. Studies included architecture, letterpress printing, graphic design, and limestone sculpture in Lacoste, France. Dews now produces ceramic sculptures, fusing a love of gardening with large scale sculptures, from realistic to whimsical. Stylized animals exude peaceful, playful expressions with a touch of the mysterious. Delightfully oversized seed pods, vegetables, and fruits create intrigue in the home or along the garden path. Glaze finishes can be gas, electric or wood firings in an Anagama, which creates an ancient look. A fifth generation Oregonian, Dews has been sculpting and teaching sculpture in the Rogue Valley since 1995.

Robert Koch takes the liberty to make his subjects humans or creatures inhabiting the same world through gestural strokes and spontaneous marks colliding with color blocks. Having the appearance of quickness and even naiveté, Robert’s deft drawing skills mean that each mark is playful and intentional at the same time. A trip to Japan when he was 20 had a lasting impact; the colors, the light, the graphic quality of the written language, and the natural designs one finds throughout Japanese daily life imprinted on his sensibility. For Robert, a successful painting is not only compositionally strong, but also has a story to tell. If the result makes him laugh, then he knows he has done what he has set out to do.

Gallery Hours:

Wednesday - Saturday 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Dews, 'Foxglove' The Badger, ceramic

Robert Koch, Street Scene, acrylic on panel