William Park, longtime Portland painter and printmaker who for years maintained a studio on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard where he worked and taught art classes, died on Sunday, March 23, 2025. He was 79 years old.

“ ‘Serious painter of paintings’ is how Bill often referred to himself as an artist, and he was that,” Laura Vincent, whose Laura Vincent Design & Gallery represents Park, said. “He loved paint, and it was because of the paint that he painted. In his words, he loved all the ways of slathering and glopping and moving paint around on the palette and then onto painting surfaces.”

Also key to his artwork were geometric shapes, as Park related in the artist’s statement on his website, calling them “the driving force behind much of the work, often suggesting industrial like shapes or other configurations that at the least might be deemed a visual inconvenience or maybe even a blight on the landscape. I thrive on the challenge of taking these often misunderstood structures and doing what I can to make them beautiful. …

“I have some influence but the painting is the driver. I follow my intuitive impulses as suggested by the movement of the paint on canvas. Although I seldom have a particular place in mind, memories of places I’ve seen or been to will come up and affect my responses. … When the paintings really work these primarily geometric shapes feel alive, like they are still evolving.”

For the past several years Park had regular exhibitions at Laura Vincent Design & Gallery, and the gallery continues to represent his work.

Park, who arrived in Portland from Southern California, came to the art world both early and late. His father was an artist, Park said in the video interview above with Tianna Lewis, assistant manager of the Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery: “I always knew I was going to be an artist; it was a given. But somehow or other I didn’t. Looking back, I let my life kind of pull me along. … When I was 41, I had a vision. I saw myself at age 70, and not having been an artist. And I felt total despair at having wasted my life. And, I’ve been painting virtually every day since then.”

“He was a sign painter,” Vincent said of Park’s pre-artist days. “That was his profession.” She, too, talked about his vision in his early 40s: “He dreamt that he had died, and he was just heartsick that he had never painted.”

That soon changed. His studio on MLK Jr. became “his happy place,” Vincent said, and both he and the many students who came to work there kept the place continually busy and exciting. “He enjoyed the paint like no other painter I knew,” Vincent commented. “And he always wanted his work to be affordable.”

“Bill was always generous with his knowledge and studio,” fellow artist Poppy Dully recalled. “In addition to his large painting studio, he shared his print studio with eight printmakers on a monthly membership basis. I was a member of his print studio for 10 years. Knowing that I was visiting California, Bill suggested I see the William Kentridge exhibition at SFMOMA. The Kentridge show completely captivated me. Bill knew Kentridge would give me a new perspective on printmaking. I have been making altered monotype books inspired by Kentridge’s artwork for the past 17 years.  Because of Bill, I am a printmaker and artist today.”

Park also greatly enjoyed the classes he gave. “Over the past four decades he taught hundreds of people,” Vincent said. “I think what that studio was, it was a community. A supportive community of people. He was in his element when he was teaching. He loved people. He really enjoyed people. And people really enjoyed him.”

A few years ago he suffered a stroke, followed by memory loss, and from that point on he couldn’t drive. Instead, Vincent said, he found an apartment about 10 blocks from his beloved studio, and was able to walk to it and continue making art.

Surprise played a big role in the way he worked, Park said in his video interview with Tianna Lewis: “I would call myself an intuitive painter. I don’t want to know what the painting’s going to look like at the end. I want to be surprised.”

In addition to his skill with paint and monoprints, Park had a way with words: “He worked both spontaneously and intuitively, coining the word ‘spontuitive’,” Vincent noted.

And at times he flashed a wry wit: “Bill had a great sense of humor,” Vincent said, ranging from his invention of smushed-together words to offhand comments on the ways of the world.

In April 2001 he had an exhibit of paintings on the main floor at Augen Gallery, while upstairs was a group show titled Sextablos, in which artists from several cities borrowed the format of the Latin American devotional paintings known as retablos, but gave them sexual rather than devotional subject matter. The juxtaposition gave rise to one of the best, most refreshing artist’s statements of the season.

“I HATE ARTIST’S STATEMENTS,” Park’s statement began in large upper case letters, and with very little in the middle it concluded: “Thank you for coming to see my work, even if your motivation was to see the sex show upstairs.”

Park’s death left a hole in Portland’s art community, and several of his fellow artists left remembrances.

“I met Bill in the ’80s, when he first arrived in Oregon. But it wasn’t until I moved from the Oregon coast to Portland in 1990 that we became good friends,” artist Michael Schlicting told Vincent. “I have 40 years of stories with Bill; our frequent mutual studio/critique visits, almost weekly lunches, trying out every Thai restaurant we could find; so it’s hard to pick just one or two stories to encapsulate his life as I knew him as an artist. But that was what Bill was — an ARTIST, in every sense of the word. He was uncompromising in the pursuit of his truth as a painter.

“We started hanging out a lot when he was living in his studio in the inner NE industrial area, a bit north of the Broadway Bridge. He had half of the second floor of an old industrial building, right next to the railroad tracks. A very large room with almost floor-to-ceiling, north facing windows, and with a ‘bathroom’ containing a dozen sinks and toilets, plus a number of showers. The perfect artist’s loft.

“He would host almost weekly life drawing sessions, everyone chipping in for the model’s fee. 

“Bill’s background was as a sign painter. A very highly skilled one. As a matter of fact, he would paint, in the pre-digital era, the 40-foot banners that hung outside on the [Portland] Art Museum, advertising the current or upcoming exhibition. The banner material was on two rollers, so you could only see four foot sections at a time. I’d watch him work on these small sections, just slashes of color and shapes up close, but resolving into a perfect Rembrandt or Gaugin when seen on the side of the building. 

“During those early years of the ’90s, if Bill wasn’t doing sign work, he was working in his studio, doing a tremendous amount of painting. I thought they were some of the best things being done in Portland and kept asking him when he was going to find a dealer, exhibit them, or … what..? But Bill would say he wasn’t ready, THEY (the paintings) weren’t ready. He explained that, yes, his background in commercial art meant that he could compose and render virtually anything with skill and veracity. But he didn’t want to use his facility as a crutch, he wanted to transcend that and say something … else. He’d know it when he felt it. We all were grateful when he did finally “feel” it, and started sharing his vision and joy as an artist with the rest of the community.”

Another fellow artist, Nannette Wallace, told Vincent: “I lost a dear friend and mentor, although I don’t feel like Bill is really gone. In truth, I didn’t really lose him. I gained so much by knowing Bill that I am left with a full heart and a good chuckle; he always made me laugh. I feel his presence and guidance as I create, and I continue to access the lessons I learned from him. There were many; stopping to pause was a big one. I think Bill spent as much or more time looking at his art as he did creating it. And he spent a lot of time creating! …

“After Bill’s stroke three years ago I helped to facilitate his journey from memory care back to living independently. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed. When Bill was placed in memory care, I organized a group of friends to help take him from memory care to his studio as often as possible per the advice of his daughter, Kelly, who thought that was the best course of action for him. … It became apparent that the studio was a place he knew and could function in better than anywhere else. Even in his most foggy moments of confusion, he knew that place. He loved his studio, and he needed to be there to find himself. …

“The entire experience is incredibly reaffirming with regard to how important creating art is. … Bill never stopped creating. It may have been a struggle at times, or just a smudge of green paint on a canvas, but every day that he could, he created something.”

Park’s full immersion in the exploratory nature of creating his art was one of the traits that drew other artists into his circle. He exhibited in his work a kind of joy in restlessness, Vincent suggested: “He enjoyed painting birds,” and bowls, circles, geometrical shapes, architecture: “Part of that was creating windows into other worlds.”

“He would kind of move around in his genres,” Vincent continued. “One that was very important to him was the ocean. Waves.”

In one such series, which he called “Beach Opera,” she added, he would “scoop up the semi-dried paint and make, perhaps, a girl, standing in his wave. … He had this series, which spoke to his sense of humor, called ‘This Is Not a Boat.’ And yet there was always this red geometric shape that looked like a ship.”

Park is survived by his daughter, Kelly Miller, and son-in-law, Bruce Miller; his son, Jeremy Park; his brothers, Pat Park (DeeDee), Chris Park, and Ken Park (Nancy); and his cherished grandchildren, Chelsea Park, Cole Miller, Jenah Park, and Tatum Miller. He also leaves behind the mother of his children, Irene Park; his loving companion, Jean Auld; and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.

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A celebration of Park’s life will begin at 1 p.m. June 14 at Multnomah Arts Center, 7688 S.W. Capitol Hwy., Portland. A reception will follow from 3 to 5 p.m. at Park’s studio, 2637 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Portland.