Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Expressionist Landscape Painters:


The World Through Rose Colored Glasses


Question: What kind of world is it when you don’t see black, grey, and brown?
Answer: It’s the world of colorists and expressionist landscape painters.

Desert Oasis 24.5" x 30.5"
by Michelle Chrisman

And what a lovely world it is. I know that personally, I ‘m attracted to high color. The primaries are my friends, and I don’t want much to do with those “sad,” muted colors.

In my last post, I wrote about landscape as a personal vision. I noticed that there are some other landscape painters at Wilde Meyer who express how they feel when they look at a scene, rather than try to reproduce it. These painters feel really good!

Michelle Chrisman does the majority of her painting outdoors in New Mexico. “Part of the enjoyment for me is to be outside, to paint quickly and record my emotional response to what I’m seeing,” she said. “I love to get in the zone, surrounded by nature, and paint alla prima, that is, wet on wet, finishing in one session.” Her painting entitled “Desert Oasis,” shown at the top of this post, is a good example of her fresh style. It’s as if she took in her surroundings and expressed it in just a moment, to say how it affected her.

Michelle is a colorist who “hyper sees,” that is, she sees the hues that make up the local color others perceive. She’s very interested in the effect of light and spectral color, which is defined by Wikipedia as “a color that is evoked by a single wavelength of light in the visible spectrum, or by a relatively narrow band of wavelengths. The spectrum is often divided up into named colors: red, orange yellow, green, blue and violet.”

Kitchen Mesa 24.5" x 30.5"
by Michelle Chrisman


You can see Michelle’s technique and color vision in her painting entitled “Kitchen Mesa.” It was painted at Ghost Ranch, the site of many of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. I like the wonderful reds and yellows she uses to show warmth and light, and the soft violets to indicate the shadow of the rock crevices. The blue/green hue in the foreground really pops against the red tones around it. In addition to strong color, Michelle uses heavy texture with a palette knife to describe her landscape.

“For me, paint is part of the experience,” she said. “I want it to be luscious, to say ‘I’m paint, touch me!’”

Barbara Gurwitz wants to create a sense of place in her landscape paintings. She takes photos and does sketches of the special places she wants to paint. But realism takes a back seat to the expression of how she felt at the time of her visit to the site. “I’m not interested in duplicating the colors of nature,” she said. “I’ve always chosen colors that speak to the way I see the world, which are sometimes different from what you would expect.”

View from the West 24" x 30"
by Barbara Gurwitz

High Country Summer 40" x 60"
by Barbara Gurwitz
When looking at one Barbara’s paintings, “A View from the West,” I know it’s a scene of a southwestern village in the foothills of a mountain range. But her strong, primary colors give this landscape great energy and a charming, folk art quality.

Santa Cruz Autumn 34" x 44"
by Barbara Gurwitz
Barbara also seems to see through rose-colored glasses, and that may be because she uses a red ground under her paintings. “It’s a wonderful neutral,” she said. She leaves the red as negative space in some areas. This is evident in most of her paintings, such as, “High Country Summer” and “Santa Cruz Autumn.” The red under-painting makes everything glow!

When Barbara paints, she often calls upon her spiritual mentor, Vincent Van Gogh (who wasn’t quite as upbeat as she). “I love his willingness to paint as he saw fit, and he’s always been an inspiration to me.”

 Leigh Gusterson learned to paint in New Jersey and was trained in the Hudson River style of plein air painting. “It was grey and humid a lot of the time, and my paintings reflected that weather.” But things changed when she relocated to Taos and experienced the effect of the light there. Now, Leigh loves to push color when she paints on location at her favorite sites.
Hollyhock Morning 9.25" x 12"
by Leigh Gusterson

“As artists, we train our eyes to see shapes, form and color more intensely,” Leigh said. “I like to share what I see with viewers of my artwork.” Even though Leigh uses non-traditional colors (as in “Hollyhock Morning”), she said that her palette is simple, with just 12-14 colors. “I can make anything I want with these colors,” she explains. “And, sometimes, it’s just the awesome New Mexican landscape that displays these amazing colors!” She said the pink cliffs in “Magpie Playground” really exist.


Magpie Playground 17.25" x 21.5"
by Leigh Gusterson

Like Barbara, Leigh enjoys painting scenes of villages nestled in the mountain foothills, with their farms, houses and church. She, too, chooses to wear rose-colored glasses, and infuses some of her work with a sense of whimsy, as in “Drive By Sheep.”

Drive By Sheep 27.5" x 27.5"
by Leigh Gusterson

So, if you’re living in the southwest, take a drive to a favorite spot and look again. You, too, may see some amazing colors you’ve never noticed there before.

"Wild Spirits"


Our latest show opened on March 17 with works by Chaille Trevor and Leigh Gusterson. Both artists show a passion for their subject matter – Leigh in her imaginative depiction of New Mexico scenes; and Chaille in her love of horses.

Leigh throws local color out the window; instead she paints what she feels: vivid blues, hot pinks and purples for the majestic mountains and still other bright colors for the fields. Old cars, sheep in 2-D (they kind of look like flat marshmallows with legs); a rustic cabin with a turquoise refrigerator outside are some of the images Leigh uses in her very personalized landscapes. She has an exuberant style and applies her paint generously.

Leigh Gusterson "Sheep with Turquoise Fridge" oil on canvas 21" x 21"

Leigh Gusterson "Sheep in the Junkyard" oil on canvas 25" x 35"


Chaille’s painting technique often involves sketching on the canvas first and then applying her paint thinly to produce a translucent, expressive style. Her work shows her knowledge and deep love of horses. She’s been training and showing Arabian horses for many years, and she invites us to know her subjects on an intimate level. For example, in the painting below, the horse looks at the viewer directly and evokes a very emotional response. 

Chaille Trevor "At Attention" 48" x 36" oil on canvas
An equally sensitive painting shows a mare and her colt leaning in towards each other, and we cannot help but feel the close bond between them.
Chaille Trevor "A Day in Spring" oil on canvas 36" x 48"

Don’t rush through his show! Each painting provides a wonderful moment of viewing pleasure!  

Below are a couple of photos from the exhibition:
Left: Chaille Trevor "His Prize" oil on canvas 36" x 48"
Right: Leigh Gusterson "Sheep in the Junkyard" oil on canvas 25" x 35"

Left: Chaille Trevor "Kissed by the Sun" oil on canvas 36" x 48"
Right: Leigh Gusterson "Dinner for Four"22"x28";
"Drive up into the Mountains"20"x20"; "Three on Llano" 16"x28"






 
"Wild Spirits" shows March 17, 2011 through March 30, 2011.

The next show is "Live in Color". It features Sherri Belassen and Ryan Hale and starts on Thursday, March 31st. We'll be getting new work by Ryan and Sherri soon, so send us an email for a preview.

"Dapper and Posh"

Trevor Mikula and Judy Feldman
Wilde Meyer kicked off its first of spring shows with an exhibit of paintings by Judy Feldman (me) and Trevor Mikula, called "Dapper and Posh." Personally, I think our work looks great together. We both love color and humor, yet our approach and techniques are different.




Trevor immerses his viewers into a world he creates by depicting funky characters and using geometric shapes and out-of-scale images, such as an oversized vase of flowers sitting atop a wobbly table about to tip over. He paints with a palette knife and uses a glossy finish to give his paintings a wonderful shine.


Trevor Mikula "Green Chair" acrylic on canvas 42"x42"




My paintings are colorful and playful, too. Often, I create an interior setting that evokes a place I'd like to be. And there's usually a narrative element in each painting. For example, in "Friends," a dog poses on his haunches in front of the mirror and sees his "friend" looking back at him. We know his owner has been there because she's left her shoes by her chair, both of which also are reflected in the mirror. I use a traditional brush technique, and often paint on a black gessoed canvas, which makes my colors pop. I love pattern - especially on chairs and pillows!

Judy Feldman "Friends" oil on canvas 40"x30"
I use a traditional brush technique, and often paint on a black gessoed canvas, which makes my colors pop. I love pattern - especially on chairs and pillows!



Wilde Meyer paired two of our paintings because they share a similar color palette. We each did a still life painting of a plant - in completely different ways, and they look really good together!




Here are a couple more photos:




"Dapper and Posh" is up until Wed. March 16, 2011. So stop by soon! The next show is "Wild Spirits" and starts on the 17th, and will feature Leigh Gusterson and Chaille Trevor.