Painting of the Day, January 16, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012 at 8:41PM Tweet By Donna Poulton
Kathryn Stats, Spider Rock (Canyon De Chelly), c. 2008, oil, 40 x 30 in. Credit: permission of Kathryn Stats and the Greenhouse Gallery Searching for the next landscape composition is, for Kathryn D. Stats, like hunting for treasure; she explains that “when a top crust of rock breaks off and falls down the slopes of softer eroded layers, it reminds me of crude jewels fallen from the crown to decorate the shoulders of softer layers below.” Like her famous great uncle, artist LeConte Stewart, she rarely used the color green, preferring instead hues of grey, peach, violet and terra cotta, colors of the desert southwest. Her vigorous brushwork and strong chromatic contrasts amplify the dizzying height of the great canyon.
In Canyon De Chelly, she found eroded layers in 800 ft. Spider Rock. According to Navajo legend, Spider Woman sprang from the rock to give humans the knowledge to defend themselves. Legend also maintains the end of the world will happen at Spider Rock.
Reader Comments (1)
A wonderful balance of being loose and being accurate!