Artist Focus: Ann Lofquist

Ann Lofquist creates landscape paintings in oil that have a contemporary aesthetic but use traditional materials and methods.

She loves the landscape and has maps that mark where every special old tree is located for a hundred miles around her home, yet in every painting her contemporary eye sees the manmade roads, buildings, vehicles, agricultural equipment, domestic animals, and detritus peering out of or integrated into the natural world.

—Marcia Burtt

A white and grey rectangular water trough counterbalances a massive autumnal sycamore in Ann Lofquist’s 7.5x14 inch study Big Sycamore and Water Trough. Wet on wet brushstrokes press into each other on the board, visible evidence of a quick sketch painted on location — a record of a fleeting moment to reference later when painting a larger scale panorama.

Lofquist revisits the sycamore and trough in Dry December, this time painted in the studio and five times the width. Visible brushwork has disappeared into the stretched canvas. The truth of the moment captured in the rough study is exchanged for a different reality formed from recollection, reflection, refinement, and revision. The sycamore’s branches come into focus, expanding from the trunk like arms of an octopus. Trough and buildings are revealed to be common agricultural prefab structures. Although basic and unadorned, they are given the same attention as the horses, trees, and rocks in the foreground and surrounding hills. Lofquist's allover composition elevates every part of the tableau.

The study San Simeon Creek 1, 5x18 inches, replicates the ratio of Lofquist’s large studio canvases. The extreme format enables an edge-to-edge composition. Treetops and shrubs extending across the sliver of panel are cropped by the narrow height of the board, forcing the viewer to imagine trees towering to infinity.

Trunks of almost bare trees in Alamo Creek Lower Grove emphasize the vertical. Painterly lines form limbs that squiggle through the short brushstrokes comprising the painting. Deft licks of white paint convey the sun's glare on the limbs.

Utility poles replace trees as vertical dividers in Santa Rosa Creek Road. Traffic signs, fence posts, and an old farmhouse are juxtaposed with the utility poles and forcibly disrupt a nostalgic reading of the rural milieu.

The two Otter Point paintings differ from the inland studies not only in subject but also in composition. Lofquist chronicles both changing light and movement of waves in these overlooks. Painted from a bluff looking down on the shore and sea with no horizon, her studies pull the viewer into the intimate space of rocks and surf.

Palisades South View I presents a hiker's view of Highway 1 at dusk. Backcountry overlook meets urban coast, car lights stream along the road like animal eyes at night. The foothill vista is both set apart and joined with the megalopolis below, a contemporary vision of the sublime.