Image of the Day, July 24, 2012

“The Conversation” by Barbara Pence received the “People’s Choice” award and the jurors’ award of merit at the recent 2012 Spring Salon and the Springville Museum of Art in Utah.

In the painting “The Conversation” it is fascinating to observe how Barbara Pence combines still life painting, commonly depicting inanimate objects, with elements of portraiture—hands and arms.  Each place setting tells a story depicting a range of emotions from passivity to aggressive gestures as one dinner guest points a knife at another. One person is half way through desert while another barely touched the meal.  The birds-eye view heightens the inherent sense of voyeurism as the viewer is privileged  to take in the entire scene at once.

“The Conversation,” by Barbara Pence. Credit: Barbarapence.com

Painting of the Day, February 29, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Artist:  Steve Songer, Park City Cottage, c. 2012, oil
, 24 x 30. Credit: Monttomeryleefineart Utah artist Steve Songer was listed in Southwest Art Magazine’s “Artists to Watch” series and in Art of The West Magazine. Much of his work comes from the area around his home in Huntsville, Utah — an area nestled in the heart of the Wasatch Mountain range. The old mining town of Park City, now a skiing and Sundance Film Festival destination, is a recurring theme in Songer’s beautifully textured works. The colorful charm of the homes that scatter the snow-filled mountain side create a mosaic of color in the deep snow that the area is famous for.

Songer’s most recent work can be seen at the Montgomery Lee Fine Art Gallery in Park City, Utah. 

Artist:  Steve Songer
, Park City Winter, oil
, 36 x 40. Credit: Monttomeryleefineart

Painting of the Day, December 30, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Anton J. Rasmussen, Delicate Arch (Study), 1995 oil on canvas on masonite, 36 x 48 in. Private Collection.  Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Anton J. Rasmussen’s Delicate Arch (1995) is his most widely recognized work. Commissioned by the Salt Lake International Airport and painted on location, the towering image of Delicate Arch is 23 feet high by 18 feet wide; a size worthy of its subject.

Delicate Arch at the Salt Lake International Airport.  Credit: 3M30

Like Thomas Moran, whose landscapes were not composed for literal reference, but rather to evoke emotional impressions of a setting, Rasmussen's paintings represent: 

"… a composite of different perspectives and different rock formations, and the palette is developed out of visual sensations collected over time … Many people have commented that they’ve seen the particular view I painted ‘just that way,’ even though it would be impossible to do so.  I have decided that as one recalls the experience of visiting the southern Utah landscape, the experience is idealized … the experiences are combined in the viewer’s mind to form a single recollection of the experience."

The multi-colored clouds and spiraling activity in Delicate Arch are loud, crowding for attention. The clouds are a softer version of the repeated motifs seen in the rocks and are important elements in understanding the decay of the rock itself. Of this process Rasmussen notes that there is a lot of “rhythm and movement, the sort of things that would have carved that rock out over the many millions of years.”

Painting of the Day, October 17, 2011

My works attempt to merge ideas and memories.  Good art functions on many levels.  There is the surface appeal of subject, and below are layers that may be peeled off, revealing information about the individual artist and the psychology of his era.  There's the subject, but there is also the underlying theme. – Gary Ernest Smith

Gary Ernest Smith, Echo Canyon, 2009, oil on linen, 48 x 48 in. Private collection

Gary Ernest Smith was raised on a rural farm in Oregon and received his B.F.A and M.F.A. at Brigham Young University.  Considered a neo-regionalist who was influenced by Grant Wood and also by Maynard Dixon, Smith is nationally recognized artist whose work is in major collections and institutions and is the subject of a book by Donald Hagerty. Smith’s paintings find form in bold assertions of the western landscape, but appeal equally to an eastern audience because they capture a shared nostalgia—a collective memory of our foundation as an agrarian society.  The images tug at our most basic desire to return to an uncomplicated and honest period in time. 

Painting of the Day, October 16, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Harold “Buck” Weaver, Landscape—Cloud Patterns, 1935, oil on canvas, 34 x 36 in., Private Collection. Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Many of Buck Weaver’s paintings are suggestive of his training with Maynard Dixon, but Landscape—Cloud Patterns reveals a more modern approach. The strong, vertically wedge-shaped clouds are perpendicular to the natural geometry of the horizontal landscape. The landmasses have been reduced in minimalist terms to their bare essentials, suggesting a breakthrough in his artistry.

This study for Cloud Design is a wonderful example of an artist’s decision making around design, but also around color.  The hues in this study are slightly warmer and less monochromatic.  His decision to limit the colors on his final canvas advanced the drama, clarity, and minimalism of his finished work.  Thank you Logan for submitting this painting by Weaver.

Harold “Buck” Weaver, Study for Cloud Design, Oil, 18 x 20 in. (inscribed to Milford Zornes verso), Collection of Logan Hagege