An Island View
Origin of myths, symbols of solitude, fomenters of fantasy: islands as represented in these paintings and photographs in our Sea and Summit exhibition dwell on the unique beauty of our regional archipelago.
In Marcia Burtt's Trails above Goat Harbor, morning sunshine brightens the yellow-orange hills and blue ocean below. The path she stands on is outside the painting and the only visible trail is made by the wake of a boat about to disappear around the point. The narrow view crops out the horizon but expands the story of a day on Catalina beyond the canvas.
Clouds have rolled in, obscuring the cove from the hills above in Burtt's Fog over Avalon. She captures an ephemeral moment between sunshine and overcast. Will clouds settle and veil the bay, or will the sun break through again before it sets?
Marcia Burtt, Fog over Avalon, acrylic, 18x20 in. sold.
Bill Dewey’s aerial photos accentuate solitude. The stretch of cliffs in North Side, Santa Cruz Island and Santa Rosa Island appear to be uninhabited, without a beach to land.
Hopes to come ashore on Santa Rosa, the island behind, are dashed in Santa Rosa Island South Light Rocks. Photographed from directly above, Dewey reveals a dangerous rocky shore — a warning to spurn the sirens’ song.
Rocks evolve into teeth emerging from the sea in Susan Petty’s Rock, Water, and Air. The fog cloaking the cove dampens out the larger world from the corporeal rock.
Morro Rock dominates its Central Coast bay, but you wouldn’t guess that from Marilyn Turtz’s 4.5x10 inch painting, Morro Rock. A path and delicate plants in the foreground are taller than the rock. The land-tied island is a dark form flattened into the coastal bluffs behind it, miniaturizing the monumental.
The islands are a distant promise in Marilee Krause’s overlooks from the Santa Barbara foothills. She paints them in the same hue as the ocean currents in her East Mountain Drive watercolor.
In SBBG Porter Trail, they cling to the top of the paper, formed from a simple pencil outline and a darker shade of blue.
Glare backlights the Channel Islands in Marcia Burtt's Camino Cielo. The islands, minimal dark blue brush strokes against golden light on the water, are a lure to descend from the hills and set sail before the clouds return.
—Cynthia Stahl
More Island inspired art
