Online exhibition:
SOUTHWEST
Extreme landscapes alter our perception of reality.
These arid alien places discourage human habitation but open us to meditative artistic response.
Erling Sjovold, Dawn to Dusk, oil, 5 panels, 14 x 12 in., 12 x 12 in., 12 x 24 in., 12 x 12in., 12 x 14 in.
Wide open spaces inspire panoramic paintings.
One canvas isn’t enough.
Sjovold’s expansive time-lapse quintych needs five panels to document dawn to dusk in the Arizona desert.
Doyle’s Grand Canyon Rim requires three canvases to convey the sublime. Time is alluded to as the sky changes from peach to blue and the viewer's eye moves from left to right across the triptych.
Patricia Doyle, Rock Water, acrylic, 3 30x30 in.
Red rock, teal sky, and purple shadows populate Marcia’s Burtt’s mountains and mesas.
Bill Dewey’s photograph of Owen’s Lake reveals a gaping
wound of red alkaline pooling and staining the earth.
Marcia Burtt, Indian Head, Borrego, 18x20 in. acrylic.
Bill Dewey, Confluence, Owens Lake, photograph, 16x16 in.
Robert Abbott, Taos in January, oil, 20x22 in.
Susan Petty, Eldorado, watercolor, 5.75x7.5 in.
Sparse landscapes inspire minimalist paintings. Every color, line and shape resonates when guiding the viewer into these worlds.
Abbott’s monochrome snowy backdrop highlights ochre vegetation and furloughed fence posts.
Petty’s pale yellow and blue washes are all that is needed to convey a millennium of water-carved terrain. Ochre and siena salty playas lead to distant mountains and light blue horizons.
Less means more space for the viewer’s meditation in these Southwestern sanctuaries.
The paintings and photographs are also available for purchase and viewing at the gallery, 1-5pm Thursday through Sunday.