Astoria Visual Arts presents a joint exhibition featuring former artists-in-residence Paul Soriano and Missy StRain, showcasing work created during their six-month residencies in 2025. The exhibition opens January 10 during Astoria’s Artwalk and remains on view through February 8.The exhibition includes Soriano’s body of work titled Whom the Gods Love and StRain’s Flow State, which collectively explore perception, memory, and deep creative immersion.

Soriano’s work centers on color as both subject and emotional language. Influenced by early encounters with European Baroque painting, Soriano draws from personal narratives to explore how color, light, and composition shape human perception—what we see, when we see it, and how deeply we feel it. His work seeks to create a visceral, immediate connection between viewer and image.

During StRain’s residency she reviewed three decades of artistic practice. Immersed in this archive, she returned to a flow state—an intuitive, focused condition where patterns surfaced and artistic direction is clarified. The resulting work explores flow itself as well as architectural views of Astoria, grounding familiar structures in reality while infusing them with whimsical color, motion, and emotional resonance.

Meet the artists during Artwalk on January 10 from 5:00 to 7:00pm. For ongoing artist updates, follow them on social media at @paulsoriano6 and @messystain.

Since establishing the AVA artist-in-residence program in 2015, AVA has provided 40 artists with free studio space and professional development opportunities. The AVA a-i-r program is sponsored by Astoria Coffeehouse and Bistro and Fine Art Supply.