Show Preview | Romona Youngquist

ROMONA YOUNGQUIST’S next solo show at ART Elements Gallery in Newberg, Oregon, is titled Wander Into My World in a nod to her tendency to paint close to home. “I love showing my local haunts where I love to paint, and I’m happy to be back with a large body of work,” she says. “This is my hometown gallery, and I’m excited because I haven’t had a show here for a couple of years.”

Youngquist, who paints in oils on birch panels or canvases, will present eight large paintings, numerous medium-sized works and some smaller studies of the big pieces. “It’s fun to show the process,” says Youngquist, who has been preparing for the past two years for this exhibition. That process begins with plein air studies she finishes in her studio with what she calls her “Rapunzel balcony” overlooking her lush garden. “I work on, I swear, about 20 paintings at a time,” she says.

She’s especially excited about the large works. “I love painting big paintings,” says Youngquist. “I want people to be able to walk into a painting, so I paint large-scale works to give that feeling. It’s more calming and less cluttered to have one large painting so the eye can rest on that piece. The older I get the more I want simplicity.”

There is a simplicity to Youngquist’s paintings in that they depict charming rural scenes: herds of cattle or sheep grazing near creeks, barns and abandoned roads, swaths of wildflowers surrounding farmhouses.

“I didn’t go to art school, but I am especially inspired by Russell Chatham (1939-2019), a Montana painter,” says Youngquist, who is self-taught. “I go with the way he thinks about painting.

He liked to paint within a 10-mile radius of where he was. He focused on knowing his subject instead of going all over the place and doing all different things. He had the original sense of place in a painting, and I follow his ideas. I stick around here and try to capture this, where I am. So many artists—and I admire them—love to go traveling to all different places, but that doesn’t work for me. It’s almost overwhelming how pretty it is here.”

For this exhibition, which is on view August 11 through October 17, Youngquist intentionally shifted her palette. “This body of work is brighter, more colorful than normal,” she explains. “I love tonal work. I love very moody work, but I’m trying a brighter, livelier version of my normal paintings.” She adds, “What I do understand is that the past five to seven years have been a struggle for a lot of people. In appreciating that, I wanted to have something in this body of work to make people have some hope.”

Youngquist praises the humidity, light and soft edges of the atmosphere surrounding her home in western Oregon. “It rains a lot here, so I love my studio,” she says. “I love having my coffee and my dogs next to me.” Youngquist’s twin daughters reside in semi-arid Colorado, where the artist frequently visits, shoots photographs and hopes to do some painting someday. —Colleen Smith

contact information(503) 487-6141artelementsgallery.com

This story appeared in the August/September 2026 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety.

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