I am very excited to announce my work has been selected for
SCAPES AND SCOPE:
VISIONS OF THE LAND, SEA, AND URBAN SPACE
The Huntington Beach Art Center is pleased to present its 2021 fall exhibition Scapes and Scope, curated by Southern California landscape artist and teacher Jim Ellsberry. The invitational, juried exhibition explores the beauty and varied expressions of landscape in contemporary art. Traditional Plein Aire and studio works anchor the exhibition which invites viewers to explore both literal and stylized interpretations of land, sea, and urban geography.
The Hike (top)
48 x 60″ Acrylic on Canvas
This painting is based on the iconic painting Kindred Spirits made in 1849 by a member of the Hudson River School of Painters, Asher Brown Durand. It depicts the founding member of the school Thomas Cole who died a year earlier and his friend, the Poet William Cullen Bryant in the Catskill Mountains. By placing the two friends together in Kindred Spirits, Durand paid homage to the art and literary circles of the early 19th century. As well as their common appreciation for nature and the American landscape. You can learn more about these great American artists here: http://arthistorynewsreport.blogspot.com/2013/06/kindred-spirits-asher-b-durand-and.html
My painting depicts a very different view from the one painted in Kindred Spirits, using the same rocky perch but after 250 years of settler colonialism. It is a frightening scene of climate crisis as witnessed by a Black woman, who as Malcolm X observed, is “…the least protected person in America.”
The Hike is my appreciation for the Hudson River School – the paintings of which I came to love as a teenager. It is also a recognition of the racial fracture in America, a profound moral failing since the founding of the country. The American barn, painted a blood-red, cascades down the falls as she watches from a safe distance.
Check out the show here: Scapes and Scope at Huntington Art Center
Main Street (bottom)
18 x 21″ Oil on Canvas
I stood out in front of this abandoned house with my French easel and paint and canvas on the tailgate of my truck for a couple of days. The dried weeds fall and plywood curls, sags and settles all baking under the searing rays of the New Mexico sun. A family, or more, lived in this house. Was it once the refuge of warmth and love that I imagined? Or was it doomed from the start? A place where a family tried to live but couldn’t? (Another scenario I imagined.) This old adobe house is the remnants of a mystery. I can’t help but wonder what happened here and why it’s been abandoned. Who owns it and why has it fallen so far?
I hope to be at the opening on September 18th and meet you if you can make it to the show.
Mark
