Nick Makanna is a California native who moved to Portland to pursue an art degree at Lewis and Clark. Nick has a strong relationship to space, largely due to a childhood spent in San Francisco watching the old industrial spaces in his neighborhood get demolished and rebuilt into apartment buildings and other modern fixtures. Thus, Nick is often documenting the industrial spaces around him presently, a process he refers to as "hoping to show both dilapidated beauty as well as inevitable mortality in times when old industrial space is being quickly demolished and altered." Heavily influenced by a long-time love/hate relationship with graffiti, modern painters (such as those of the New Leipzig school), and classical painters as well (Heironymous Bosch, Breugel, Albrecht Durer) he uses watercolor and acrylic primarily, and makes work out of a sunny, garage-turned-studio in Ladd's Addition. One unique thing about Nick's work is its variety: colorful large-scale paintings, pastel watercolors, and vibrant murals covering both walls and trucks alike. He does commissions as well - most recently he painted the giant, rolling garage door of The Water Heater (a bar on Albina and Fremont)! Be sure to check out the many forms Nick Makanna's work takes, below!

click to go to Nick's website.