Artist focus: Marilyn Turtz
Marilyn Turtz distills landscape glimpses into small-scale tableaux that convey beauty using powerful skewed compositions juxtaposed with delicate attention to edges.
Marilyn Turtz, Windblown at Morro Bay, oil, 8×12 in.
Windblown at Morro Bay barely features the bay. The ocean and coast are nearly pushed off the masonite panel by a cypress rising from behind some bushes—a family portrait of weather-sculpted shrubbery.
Marilyn Turtz, Morro Rock, oil, 4.5×10 in.
A 4.5x10 inch painting of massive Morro Rock reveals sly humor. The volcanic plug is matched in size by branches of native plants along a foreground path. The rock might be the destination, but Turtz spotlights splendor along the way.
Marilyn Turtz, Afternoon at the Ranch, oil, 8×12 in.
Turtz's blur of staccato strokes conjures a grey day in Afternoon at the Ranch. A thin stripe of blue water animates a golden field with a sly smile below mountains that peer through massive sycamores.
Marilyn Turtz, Ranch in Fog, oil, 8×12 in.
Turtz plays with minimalism in Ranch in Fog. Haze obscures details and simplifies the composition to triangular mountains, a rectangular field, and dark masses of soft-edged trees.
Marilyn Turtz, Goleta Beach, acrylic, 8×12 in.
Turtz ignores the beach in her painting Goleta Beach. The top half describes Goleta Slough’s shoreline and the blue coastal mountain range in the distance, while the bottom is an abstraction of olive and light blue that creates a visual support for the complexity of the inlet’s edge.
Marilyn Turtz, Sunset, Goleta Beach, acrylic, 8×12 in.
Turtz renders the golden hour's warm light with streaks of orange along both tree tops and sand. Visible strokes of cyan, blue, lavender, and green are thinly painted, her precise observation and deft style creating a sublime effect.
—Cynthia Stahl