Cory Pressman

A few years ago, I entered a series of life events that greatly challenged my sense of self and stasis. Being a lifelong musician, I turned to songwriting for creative balm. However, for the first time in my life, the music would not come. Around that time, I was experimenting with asemic writing and creating simple visual compositions with graphite on paper. I let go of any inhibition and quite suddenly, as with Melville’s Ishmael, "the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open.”

My artworks use the colors and forms of everyday experience as an alphabet with which to describe states of consciousness that are otherwise difficult to articulate. To do this, the works isolate and rearrange the hues, shapes, and relationships of shadows, stars, paths, the sun, eyes, flowers, fences, clouds, every tree, insects, architecture, alphabets, dusk, rain, and all birds. These pieces report and transport; they are the map and the territory; they are the ticket and the treasure.

Corey S. Pressman is an award-winning emerging artist, writer, and teacher living in the Pacific Northwest. He is an owner-member of Portland’s Waterstone Gallery.

Education
Washington State University – Pullman, MA. Anthropology, 1993
SUNY Oneonta, NY – BA. Anthropology, 1991

Fellowships, Memberships & Occupation
Instructor, University of Portland, 2019 – Present
Faculty, Wayfinding Academy, Portland, OR 2019 – Present
Fellow, Arizona State University Center for Science and the Imagination, 2015 – Present

Selected Exhibitions
Group Exhibition, Abstract Catalyst #8, Verum Ultimum, Portland, OR 2021
Group Exhibition, Oregon State Fair, Salem, OR 2021
Group Exhibition, Works on Paper, Firefly Gallery Northport, NY 2021
Solo Exhibition, Lanterns, Cooley Gallery, Old Lyme, CT 2021
Artworks Northwest Biennial, Roseburg, OR, 2021
Group Show, Grounded Gallery, Portand, OR, 2021
Solo Exhibition, King of No Country, Waterstone Gallery, 2021
Cover Art, The Closed Eye Open, 2021
Portland Light Festival, Breathe,(installation) 2021
Group Exhibition, Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT 2021
Group Exhibition, Mighty Tieton, Tieton, WA 2020 (Juror’s Award)