About

Transformation has long been one of the central driving forces in my life. I've always embraced change and new surroundings, as I’ve made my way from Dallas, TX (where I grew up) to southern and northern California; Boulder, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; Taos, New Mexico; and (in 2021) a return to the Portland, Oregon area – each place inspiring new ideas and unique avenues for dynamic personal growth and radical transformation.

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While visiting Taos, New Mexico in 2015 as a fellow of Wurlitzer Foundation (where I spent a semester as an artist-in-residence), I fell in love with the landscape, and my work took on a looser, more expressive style, especially in the backgrounds of my subjects. A further exploring/shifting found me playing with the fluidity in form and paint between the abstract background and my foreground subject.

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In addition to painting realism, I've recently been drawn to challenging myself in a way I've never been challenged before: painting purely abstract art that strives to communicate a depth of feeling in surprising, expressive ways. As I explore and intuitively find my own way within the abstract language of form and color, I’m also finding a shift in my own identity – a deepening embrace of the unknown, a constant re-discovery and a break from my comfort zone into the unchartered territory shifting within. My intention is to take you, my viewers, with me on your own exploration – encountering powerful, uncharted depths within yourself as you engage the freshness of shape, color, and form in my new abstract work.

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Anna Magruder is a recipient of a 2014 RACC grant for her "Oregon's Painted History" series and was honored with a 2015 Artist Residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos. Her art appears in numerous publications and private collections.

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Anna Magruder Art & Illustration -- specializing in portraits, whimsy and historic surrealism