Online exhibition: Our Favorites
Patricia Doyle, Pacific Detail, acrylic, 24×24 in.
Marcia and Cynthia chat about some of their favorite pieces by the Gallery artists.
Cynthia: Disclaimer — Ask me another day and you will get entirely different choices. I often fluctuate between decorative and minimalism. Today I chose some of each.
Marcia: I like space in a landscape work — whether as sky, water, or simply an abstract shape.
And I love to see the medium as patches of paint or colored lines while at the same time it forms the illusion of reality. My mind switches back and forth between paint on canvas to the infinity of the sky or distant islands.
I get yet a different thrill looking at a somewhat abstract painting that allows me to construct and repeatedly revise an imagined reality. Pat’s “Pacific Detail” and Meg Torbert’s “City Lights” work this way for me.
Jeff Yeomans, In the Moment, oil, 16×20 in.
Marilyn Turtz, Sunset, Goleta Beach, acrylic, 8×12 in.
Cynthia: I also love it when a painting flickers between form and illusion. And sometimes it’s the slightest accent that sparks the painting to life. The bright orange of Marilyn Turtz's sand, the wonderful brushes of blue at the bottom of Jeff Yeoman’s painting of the Goleta Slough, and your splotchy grey brushstrokes that are just that but also the clouds reflecting on the lake.
But the ultimate example of this is Randall David Tipton’s paint dripping storm. You can’t ignore the paint, and yet it’s the perfect depiction of a distant rain storm.
Marcia Burtt, Winter on the Lake, acrylic, 15x25 in.
Randal David Tipton, Southeast Wyoming, watercolor, 8.5x13.5 in.
Marcia: Pat Doyle’s “Pacific Detail” is a study for her painting “Voluntario.” You can find our online feature here: https://www.artlacuna.com/upclose-voluntario. I hadn’t realized that and now can’t unsee it.
Cynthia: Meg Torbert’s 48x48 in. “City Lights” is currently on display next to a very tiny Anne Ward lemon study. Another tiny painting that I could have hung it with is Dana Hooper’s “Wireless.” It’s only 6x6 in., but has an energy and push towards abstraction similar to Meg’s. Dana might even have come close to using the same amount of paint.
Meg Torbert, City Light, acrylic, 48x48 in.
Dana Hooper, Wireless, oil, 6×6 in.
My decorative choices by Anne Ward and Susan Petty are variations on some previous pieces they have done. I first viewed Ward’s “Sunlight on Lemons” as a small jpg, neglecting to look at the dimensions. I assumed it was one of her 16x16 in. still lifes. It had her familiar motif of the real alongside imitation, light and shadow, plus a sharp object. I was blown away by the 30x30 in. painting that was delivered. Sometimes bigger is even better.
One of my favorite series of drawings by Susan Petty was of eucalyptus trees. The cropped focus on the trunk revealed the alien shapes formed by the shedding bark. And now in color, another wow moment.
Anne Ward, Sunlight on Lemons, oil, 30x30 in.
Susan Petty, Monolyth, oil, 40x30 in.
Robert Abbott, Equine Skyline, oil, 7.75×30
Marilee Krause, NM Dawn, mixed media, 14x10 in.
Robert Abbott's “Equine Skyline” is a delightfully compact parade of trees and horses. I can imagine him planning a much larger painting but realizing all the fun was on the ridge. Just paint that. So he did.
Above you mention an attraction to space, and Marilee Krause is able to portray a vast sky and mesa with a few washes, some brush swipes, and a strip of red paper creating a blazing horizon. Minimalism doesn’t have to be cool detachment. Krause proves how exciting leaving out the details can be.
Marcia: The opposite of minimal is Michael Ferguson. He uses the decorative, textured foreground to flatten, and the fog flattens the rocks, yet creates infinite space as it wipes out the horizon. That duality fascinates me. Ian Roberts does this with his loose brushwork of grasses at the bottom of “Summer at the Lake.” You can see the painting evolve from the brushstrokes and paint in the foreground to the illusion of landscape in the distance.
Bill Dewey’s photograph works with patterns seen from an aerial perspective, flattening the landscape into two dimensions. I’m captivated by switching back and forth from the illusion of reality from above and the simple lacy textures of cliffs, waves, and spindrift.
Bill Dewey, Litehouse and Big Surf, photograph, 11x17 in.
Ian Roberts, Summer at the Lake, oil, 24x30 in.
Michael Ferguson, Fog, acrylic, 32×30 in.
Cynthia: Erling Sjovold and Ann Lofquist, while realists, also find these alternate views of the landscape. Their paintings reflect a love of being outdoors and discovering the opposite scene of what we ordinarily view. They are painted from behind the stage set of our world. I’m always discovering something new from their paintings.
Erling Sjovold, Gibraltar Rock, oil, 18×14 in.
Ann Lofquist, Palisades South View I, oil, 24×28 in.
The paintings are also available for purchase and viewing at the gallery, 1-5pm Thursday through Sunday.