Palm Springs

New Work
Palm Springs
Solo Exhibition
PRN Gallery
Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend
Springfield, Oregon
November 2025 - January 2026​

The warm, golden palette of the Palm Springs paintings are now exhibited at PRN Gallery in Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield, Oregon. The Palm Springs series consists of fifteen paintings. The pieces are full of color and fat shapes, fat with love.
 
I am from the Pacific Northwest, specifically, Eugene, Oregon. Where I live, nearly five feet of rain falls each year. This amount of rainfall leaves the Willamette Valley lush, but the damp air and constantly overcast skies can leave a person with a sense of perpetual despondency. When I visited the Coachella Valley for the first time in 2022, I, for a lack of a better word, fell in love. I have been to the city of Palm Springs, twice now, the little city is nestled in the valley. That dry desert town with its golden sand and blue pools contains the ongoing vibe of the crooner. You can’t help but listen to Frank Sinatra. I love the dry air and ease of the small city. The downtown of Palm Springs is walkable. On your way to the Palm Springs Art Museum, a gargantuan Marily Monroe with a flirty smile and upturned dress invites you to stop and say,  “Hello.” Everyone does. She is the muse and the mistress of that pedestrian block (Since writing this statement, I read that Marilyn Monroe has been moved in light of all the controversy. Big Girls seem to always be controversial).
 
In the dry air and golden sand all my irritation and irritability of the past Covid years seemed to dissipate. The heat killed the annoyance of past grudges and replaced it with something that felt like forgiveness. I’m not sure who I forgave when I walked in the desert or where all that anger went. Maybe anger and grudges cannot live in the desert, and for me, that is good.
 
The writings of C. S. Lewis has also inspired much of my work. His writings regarding humans being like  circles resonated with me because much of my work is based on the circle. The circle, as a whole, as completeness and as holiness fits perfectly with my understanding of being in relationships and the connectivity of belonging. Circles connect my abstract and figurative work into one narrative, my understanding, my process and story.
 
M. V. Moran earned her MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Moran has a BFA in Painting from the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. Moran currently works for PeaceHealth and facilitates the RiverBend Stroke Survivor and Caregiver Support Group. Moran has exhibited prolifically throughout the Pacific Northwest. In 2020, the Big Girls and Bad Air series exhibited in a solo exhibition at Coos Art Museum. Moran is also an Artist-in-Residence for the Lane Arts Council and has taught at Bushnell University and was a faculty member for Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. Moran is a lifelong Oregonian, raised in Sutherlin, educated in Eugene and Portland, and has lived in Eugene for the past thirty years.

M. V. Moran

If interested in purchasing pieces from this series, please contact the artist at [email protected]
A portion of proceeds will be donated to the RiverBend Stroke Survivor and Caregiver Support Group.