Blending the energy of street art with the beauty of Central Oregon’s wild, open spaces, muralist Evan Namkung has developed a style that’s both bold and deeply rooted in nature. His work can be seen across Bend and beyond—the vibrant portraits of river birds enlivening a once-drab Old Mill District staircase, an evocative downtown mural merging urban and alpine imagery, or even the lone elk that appeared on Deschutes Brewery’s 2024 Jubelale packaging art and bottle labels.
Merging geometric abstraction with natural forms, his self-taught technique reflects his love of the outdoors, which he embraces through trail running and mountain biking. His style evolved from trying to represent light and contrast differently.
“I started playing with shapes in nature—like a tree—and made it more precise,” said Namkung. By adding bold, nontraditional colors, he could depict something familiar in an unexpected way, and it became his language for seeing and sharing the world. Bringing this talent into a home can clearly inject verve and personality into a private space.
“More and more, people are interested in art that isn’t necessarily traditional, like a painting in a frame or a picture framed on a wall,” said Namkung. “It’s having something that’s unique…created just for them. It certainly doesn’t get more personal than something painted directly onto the wall, specifically for that space.”
Beyond the aesthetic impact of custom art, murals can be the answer to interior design challenges. Namkung has worked with several clients who were stymied by walls that defied ornamentation by virtue of their size or location, especially in Central Oregon homes where vaulted ceilings and tall stone fireplaces often make decorating a challenge.
In a Sisters home, a roughly 20-foot wide wall with an 18-foot vaulted ceiling above a fireplace created the perfect canvas for a mural. For that space, he created a mural of a Great Horned Owl in flight adorned with some of his signature geometric elements. Instead of painting directly on the surface, he chose to make the mural removable by using a 12-foot by 6-foot canvas.
When meeting with clients, Namkung often discusses whether the mural should be permanent or portable—something they can take if they move. As a muralist, he’s at peace with not knowing whether someone may eventually paint over it. “That’s part of it,” he said. “That’s always a possibility.”
Namkung said some clients come to him with a very specific idea and then give him the freedom to play around with color. “Others give me total creative freedom,” he said. “I’m focused now on landscapes and wildlife—so if someone asked for a portrait of a person, I’d probably turn that down.”
A fox mural theme was specifically requested by the client for a hallway visible from the living room and kitchen. Namkung did some digital sketches based on a few images to create the look he wanted. “It felt as though it was tiptoeing around a corner—as you come out of the kitchen, it would be right there in front of you,” he said.
Like a street artist, he works primarily with spray paint. “I’ve been figuring this all out along the way, and coming up with all my own techniques,” said Namkung. “That’s part of the fun of it, trying to problem-solve and figure out how to get my art to look the way I want, depending on the project.”
Most of the work, however, is the design process, with Namkung drawing digitally on his iPad, figuring out the shapes, colors and overall feel. Depending on the project, he sometimes uses a projector to trace outlines on the wall—a method that works well in tighter spaces such as hallways. Other situations, such as the staircase in the Old Mill District, required dividing the art into boxes with a matching grid on his iPad to scale the design.
He balances his creative work with a full-time role managing a behavioral health program for Deschutes County. At the same time, demand for his art is growing, with a recent commission for a large-scale mural for the renovation of a shopping center in Southwest Portland.
For now, Namkung is hesitant to pursue murals full-time—preferring the flexibility to step back and choose only the projects that truly excite him. “Having that freedom,” he said, “is ultimately going to make my art better.”
Whether it’s a fox tiptoeing through a hallway or an owl soaring across a vaulted ceiling, Namkung’s murals give homeowners a way to live more closely with the wild beauty that surrounds them.
This article was originally published July 18, 2022
For Evan Namkung, the pandemic ignited a passion that had been simmering in the background of his life. As a kid, he painted to have something to hang on the wall. As an adult, he’d lost the habit. Instead, he focused on his job as a social worker and his off-hours activities as an avid ultrarunner, skier and search-and-rescue volunteer. When the pandemic hit, he suddenly had extra time to pursue his love of street art and graffiti. Namkung began painting murals on buildings and in people’s homes and creating smaller images to paint on canvas.
“Last year the combination of being stuck at home during COVID and all the social stuff going on in the world became a confluence for me to see whether I could grow something organically and invest time in it,” he said. Grow it, he did.
In the past year, the self-taught artist’s vision has appeared on buildings, breezeways, in businesses and art venues, garnering appreciation among art lovers who enjoy his fresh perspective on figures and the natural world.
“Evan brings a different dynamic to Bend. His work is edgy and raw and combines a duality of meticulous portraits with a street vibe,” said Lacey Champagne, owner of Layor Art + Supply. “He captivates raw emotion and has a close connection with his viewers.”
Namkung grew up in Oakland, California, and moved to Bend in 2016 for a change of pace and to enjoy the outdoors. He became involved with the mountain rescue unit of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue. He finds the volunteer work that he does there to be like his other hobby, long-distance trail running. “They are meditative activities where you can focus and complete something,” he said, in contrast to his job as a social worker with Deschutes County Behavioral Health, where he finds that the work is never finished.
When Namkung is not applying paint directly to a building, he makes art in his home-office-turned-studio in NorthWest Crossing. The space contains large canvases stacked against a wall, many with vibrant colors dripped, sprayed and splashed onto the surface, striking an incongruous feel in the tidy, clean room.
He starts each project by surveying stock images on the Internet for interesting faces and figures, often people who might otherwise be ignored by the mainstream. He builds a concept on his iPad and then moves a canvas outside for the messy part of spray painting and dripping blobs of color to create the background. Next comes a line drawing which he projects onto the canvas or a hardwood board. He finishes the composition back in the studio.
Namkung’s paintings have been displayed at The Grove in NorthWest Crossing, Layor Art and Crater Lake Spirits Downtown Tasting Room. His murals adorn the Box Factory Breezeway and the City of Bend downtown parking garage. The latter work was part of the High Desert Mural Festival held last year featuring artists of BIPOC and/or LGBTQ identity, said the festival’s founder and fellow artist Doug Robertson. “One of Evan’s main objectives was to highlight accessibility to the outdoors,” he said, referring to Namkung’s mural on the city garage which depicts a young African American girl looking up at a butterfly, with a mountain range in the background.
“He’s merging city street art with traditional landscapes. He’s bringing something different with great technical skills,” Robertson said. “His color palette is bright and bold; a needed voice in our community.”
When asked what his future looks like, thirty-nine-year-old Namkung says his ultimate dream is to become a full-time muralist. “Painting balances what I need to keep myself healthy and happy,” he said. “Whether it’s the grit of city living, the diverse world of plants and animals, or anything in between, art constantly offers us chances to see our world differently.”
See evannamkung.com.
