That guy taking pictures while perched on an outcropping at the Oregon Zoo, the one with a special interest in big cats just might be Portland artist, Berle Bledsoe. Bledsoe, a self-taught artist, has been painting seriously for about twelve years His first efforts were done many years ago,but marriage, raising a family, and his work as a warehouseman for Unisource intervened, and soon put art on the back burner.
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That guy taking pictures while perched on an outcropping at the Oregon Zoo, the one with a special interest in big cats just might be Portland artist, Berle Bledsoe. Bledsoe, a self-taught artist, has been painting seriously for about twelve years His first efforts were done many years ago,but marriage, raising a family, and his work as a warehouseman for Unisource intervened, and soon put art on the back burner.

When he retired his wife encouraged him to start again and he now devotes many hours to his rapidly expanding career. Berle is a regular at the Lake Area Artists show and the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts.
Berle prefers working from photographs and is an expert at imposing imagination and impression on reality. His first love is doing portraits, both of people and animals. Berle has a unique ability to see beyond the superficial and reveal the inner beauty of his subject, a talent he brings to both his portraits and to his wildlife and landscape works.
 
He measures his success by whether a person identifies with his subject and has a good feeling about It. When someone looks at his work and feels they have either been there, seen it, done it, or felt it, Berle feels he has done his job well. He wants viewers to connect with his art. (Belinki & Duprey Gallery)