‘Art Awakens the Soul’ exhibit now showing at AKI Gallery

An artist who has always felt a calling to create has revived his passion for art in his retirement.

The skilled painter is now sharing his work with the community at The AKI Studio and Gallery in North Bend.

“It’s always been in me. But having had to set it aside for so many years. I now just I get thrilled about it,” said John Butler.

“I’m no kid, but I feel it makes that kid in me come out,” he said.

Butler was born and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The thriving social and spiritual movements that took place in his youth helped form his creative vision of a complex world beyond that which is immediately experienced.

He began to paint his inner world, allowing ideas and images to churn and to well up into what can be understood as an expression of modern mythology in dreamlike imagery.

Now living in Oregon’s Bay Area, Butler finds inspiration in the coastal landscape. His more recent landscape works have a focus in expressing a more loose, painterly style.

Butler said he is excited to share his work with others through the AKI art exhibit, which is owned by John Hoobler.

“I’m happy to be a part of the art community, and sharing my work with the community and the community of artists,” Butler said.

“John (Hoobler) is doing a fabulous job with the gallery - and we need it here. The artists’ commu-nity needs a place like that,” he said.

The John Butler exhibit started May 1 and will run through the end of the month. An artists’ recep-tion will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 25.

The AKI Gallery is located at 1997 Sherman Ave in North Bend. Gallery hours are Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 9 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m.