Posts Tagged ‘Jackson Hole Visual Arts’
Marshall Noice’s paintings, wildly and emotionally vibrant, link contemporary Western art to early 20th century Fauvism. Those artists were known as “Les Fauves,” or “Wild Beasts.”
This I knew. But I’m finding out new and very cool things about Montana-based Expressionist painter Marshall Noice, whose new show of works Shadows & Light, opens at Altamira Fine Art on August 16, 2011. The show runs through August 30, 2011 and and opening reception will be held Thursday, August 18, 5-8:00 pm.
If you have an aptitude for rhythm memory and a fine sense of pitch, you may very well also be an excellent photographer or painter. Noice’s creative path includes music, photography and, most successfully, painting. In a former life he was a drummer, touring and opening for acts as big as the Allman Brothers Band, Cheap Trick, and Tower of Power. Eventually Noice quit the road, moved to Montana and discovered the great photography of Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams.
Noice the photographer came upon the paintings of fellow Montanan Theodore Waddell. Riveted, Noice c0mmenced 100 paintings of Blackfeet artifacts. “After those 100 paintings, I’d found what I was looking for in terms of an art process,” Noice says. “Color doesn’t trump composition in my work. They’re pretty much on equal footing….I have spent a lifetime relating to the landscape in one way or another…I get direct inspiration from being in nature.”
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Jackson Hole artist Jennifer L. Hoffman opens her new show of works, Intrinsic Nature, at Trio Fine Art on Thursday, August 17, 2011. The show runs through September 3, 2011, and an artist’s reception takes place at Trio on Thursday, August 18th, 5-8:00 pm. Twenty-four new works will be included; most are pastels but Hoffman plans to include oil paintings and at least one drawing.
Hoffman says she’s never felt such energy for exploration and pushing her artistic envelope. Noted forher soft, tonalist light and muted palette, Hoffman’s paintings evoke real emotion. This show embraces the artist’s love and examination of “close-in” places: aspen trunks, winding streams and channels, ridgelines, snow and her exquisite, cloud-soft skies.
Nobody does Wyoming sky like Hoffman. Violet cumulus clouds reflect purple winter mountains and
bare trees. She’s a lover of shadow, of rubbing nature’s elements together, rich with texture, spare of detail. A delicate, misty scrim floats over Hoffman’s landscapes.
“Sometimes I find myself noodling around, adding branches and twigs, putting in more and more,” Hoffman notes. “The next day, I come back to the studio and wipe it all back down. It’s not always easy to make things say a lot simply, but that is what I find I want in my paintings. That is what the title of my show is about – trying to extract the essential inspiration from all the detail of nature, and of life….The more I paint, the more I want to paint.”
A final note: Hoffman’s landscapes are part of New York’s Salmagundi 34th Annual Juried Painting & Sculpture Exhibition, featuring works by non-members. View her work there through August 19, 2011. Congrats, Jen! www.triofineart.com
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Cayuse Western Americana “has assembled a fun assortment of maps from Jackson Hole, Grand Teton Park, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and more.” Artists include Jo Mora, Jolly Lingren and Tom Carrigen. Western jeweler Dawn Bryfogle will be there, too; she’s expanded her range and plans to show big pieces, made of sterling, 14K gold fill and semi precious stones, all with her signature attention to detail.
Stop in to Cayuse (guess when?) Thursday, August 18th, 5-8:00 pm. 307.739.1940 www.cayusewa.com.
Interior, a site-specific installation by Jackson Hole artist Suzanne Morlock, is part of “Project Space”, an exhibition at Queens College Art Center in Flushing, New York. On exhibit through June 30, 2011, the work is Morlock’s interpretation of what a “terrestrial landscape formed of spheres of newspaper-yarn might look like.”
Knitted newspaper curtains cover ‘Project Space’ windows, and Interior “compels viewers to press their noses against the room’s windowpanes in order to better see the interior of the room.” It’s all part of Morlock’s quest to engage viewers and elicit questions about space and its properties.
Morlock’s glittery gold knit Sweater is set for installation at California’s Charles Schulz Museum. For more information about Suzanne Morlock and her work, visit www.suzannemorlock.com.
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Just weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami obliterated lives, livlihoods and landscapes in Japan, a group of international photographers has initiated the 3/11 Tsunami Photo Project. Established to aid the people of Japan, the project is available in an iPad
application platform.
A statement from journalistic photographer Ryo Kameyama, taken from 3/11′s website:
“When the earthquake struck Japan, I was in the mountains in Mexico, and many villagers asked me, “Is your family all right?”
When I returned to town and saw the nuclear power plant exploding with white smoke on TV, I felt that it was time to return to Japan.
Spring had not yet arrived in the devastated areas, and when it snowed I was freezing cold. The tsunami ripped apart families and memories, and changed human behavior in the blink of an eye.
People who lost everything were trying to move forward, but at the same time were suffering unimaginably from an extreme sense of loss in the ravaged landscape. They were afraid that they might be forgotten as time passed.
A month after the disaster, people still have not found the bodies of their missing family members. Villages are still buried in the debris.
The nuclear power plant, promoted as an environmentally friendly way of generating power, has exploded several times.
It is time to fundamentally re-think the way Japanese society functions.”
“How do I paint what energy looks like? How do I paint the moment when a form is actually forming, and what happens before and after energies collide?”
Enormous questions, problems Einstein or Hawking might be able to actually solve. Jackson artist Alison Brush ponders them every time she paints. Brush’s fluid, abstract paintings are gestures to the universe. Her acrylic works (recently on display, with a large percentage sold, at Elevated Grounds in Wilson, Wyoming) are celestial, cosmic, nebular. They also bring to mind an ocean’s swirling, pulsing depths.
“It’s fascinating and beautiful to me, to think about what happens after storm fronts explode against one another. I love to consider what is common to all of us, things that connect us, whether we
can see them or not, or are even aware of their existence,” says Brush. “Many people refer to my paintings as “Rorschachs” because they are so open to interpretation. The more you look at them, the more you see. That’s what I want—people taking time to discover what they do see in my paintings.”
Brush does not use black pigment, but her works suggest deep space. One has to incorporate stillness to offset “an event that is taking place” in a work. She works in “gestures,” swooping and curving her brushstrokes, adding curves and twists. She’s long had a passion for the simple formations of rocks and wood, and dissolves their physical essence in her paintings. Even in the darkest spaces, activity thrives.
Brush paints with intent, but favors acrylics for their malleable quality. She can be bold, make mistakes; and mistakes often turn into wondrous artistic conclusions.
“I envision my paintings as windows on a world largely mysterious to all of us. I use large and small canvases, because smaller fields can pose great artistic challenge–how do you fit the energy of a universe inside such a space? These paintings are totally different from the animal portraits I also love to do. Those represent my rational side; the atmospheric works come from my intuition.”
Though Brush had an arts background , she worked in the corporate world, a Wall Street fixture. She left the Street in 1988, but stayed in the corporate world until 2001. Five years ago she returned to painting full time.
“I’ve found a new voice,” she says. “I’m so happy to be getting such positive response to my work. People tell me they don’t understand abstraction in art, but they find my paintings beautiful.”
There is a long list of reasons why Vertical Harvest’s garage garden project merits a green light. Its value as public art lies near the top.
The proposed vertical garden is more than a green project (see this link for an April, 2009 post on vertical gardens). Vertical gardens are one form of public art, and creating a good plan to incorporate public art into town planning would be a very smart move for Jackson. As Americans for the Arts notes, it’s important to clarify the difference between public art and art placed in public spaces. ArtSpot is an example of the latter; a vertical greenhouse an example of the former. ArtSpot offers art to everyone; one needn’t visit a museum or gallery. That is benefit in itself.
Public art incorporates planning around a specific site, considers how it will affect the public, how environmental conditions will figure in, evaluates what the art says about the site and community it inhabits. Vertical Harvest’s garden will provide healthy food, cleaner air, jobs (engineers, food growers, architects, designers, solar scientists…) and add welcome beauty to an unremarkable structure.
Successful public art is a powerful tourism tool. It builds cultural appeal. It builds recognition of place; it interprets place. All these elements stimulate economy. Well positioned public art draws people through urban spaces. Public art would engage visitors who don’t make it more than a block south, north, east and west of the Square and encourage them to venture further.
Often, public art is not fully appreciated until years after its installation. But you need only consider your favorite public art landmarks. Can you imagine the cities and spaces they inhabit without them? Over time, dynamic public art becomes an enduring symbol of place.
Vertical Harvest’s project design leaves most of the garage accessible for parking. If its building specs permit, the newly green space could be rented out for public functions, fund raisers, weddings, bat
mitzvahs, etc. All generating revenue. The Town of Jackson’s identity, going forward, seems up in the air. Adding significant amounts of public art to available spaces (planning for and creating an open sculpture garden adjacent to the Center for the Arts, for example) will help Jackson move into an identity clearly different from that of Teton Village and Shooting Star. It is a very difficult course to try and match their status as luxury ski resorts.
Jackson’s 2010 Fall Arts Festival’s resounding economic success indicates that arts are the Town of Jackson’s trump card. Let’s play it.
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Eco-landscape designer Patricia Johanson sends this video made for a NYC art exhbition; the clip profiles the Petaluma Water Recycling Facility and Salt Lake City, “finally in construction after large cash settlements and other concessions to a developer who owned an easement across our trail.” Good public gardens and public art also increase real estate values, says Johanson.
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Wyoming’s Olive Fell (1896-1980) will be the focus of Cayuse’s attention on Thursday, February 17. Stop by Jackson’s best Western and National Parks Americana gallery from 5-8 pm that day, and see how Fell’s work “presents a reflection
of the beauty in stillness, the peaceful wonder, and the fun and humor that still compose the American West.”
Cayuse’s Mary Schmidt shares Fell’s history:
“Born in Big Timber, Mt in 1896 (Fell) spent her early childhood in the remote areas of the northern part of the state….Her natural relationship with the wilderness drew her to move to the 1800 acre Four Bear Ranch after her schooling, and this is where she remained for the duration of her life. The Four Bear Ranch, 25 miles west of Cody, was close to both Yellowstone and the protected game refuge of the Absaroka Range; thus allowing her to track and observe animals. From the beginning Fell’s works were highly regarded on a national level. In 1934 her etching For Minds to Know was selected as one of best 100 prints of the year. Her works were seen at the International Etchers show in LA; the Northwest Printmakers show in Seattle; and at The National Art Exhibition in Chicago in 1939. It was a natural that Fell would develop a long relationship with Yellowstone. In the 20s through the 40s Fell created postcards, posters, and letters for park visitors. Locally she also began loaning works to the Buffalo Bill Museum, later renamed The Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Her works hung in the museum for years and they, along with the Montana Historical Society, still have the largest collections.”
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Meet photographer John Richter during during Thursday, February 17th’s Gallery Walk.
Remember wildflowers?
Richter Photography is located at 30 King Street, across from Shades Cafe. Stop by to visit Richter and see his work 5-8:00 pm. For information, phone 307.733.8880 or email sales@johnrichterphoto.com.
“I had never seen a truly iconic image of lightning hitting the high peaks of the Tetons and had envisioned this photo for at least a couple years. With patience and a little luck, the perfect storm finally pushed into the mountains, and I watched the intense clouds brew for several hours before deciding I had a chance of making the shot. It was 2 a.m. and I was the only one around…driving through GTNP was both exhilarating and daunting as all I could see was a wall of blackness fronted by a veil of occasional lightning strikes. These powerful stabs of light were my only gauge of the storm’s progress as it slowly engulfed the Teton Range and headed [straight] toward me.” ~Jeff Diener
There’s another photog in town.
In truth, Jeff Diener has been around Jackson and the Greater Yellowstone region for 12 years, doing very well for himself shooting outdoor and adventure shots for corporate sports clients like Cloudveil, Patagonia and Title Nine, and popular sports journals like Outside, Mens Journal and Backpacker. The work’s been lucrative, but now Diener wants to bond a little more with the world of fine art. And to that end, he’s built a new website, www.jacksonholegallery.com. (On this blog, you’ll find a link to his site under Arts Links.)
There’s something in the water…I’ve not researched it, but if anyone can point to a Jackson Hole sector exercising more entrepreneurial gumption than the arts, I’d like to hear about it.
Diener says his new site offers over 3,000 hand-picked images of Jackson, the Western U.S. and several international destinations. The site is the most recent venue to offer a way for photography lovers to search for new images. Featured galleries and photos guide visitors, and Diener has supplied ways to search for images via keywords and browsing. It’s a full-service photography and social-media connected site.
Diener talks about the inspirations for his work.
“The site has a high-end, well edited collection of landscapes available for fine art print purchase as well as outdoor adventure & active lifestyle pics on tap for stock photo licensing. The locations represented span the western U.S. and the world with a focus on Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park. (The collection) is growing….national parks, national forest lands and outdoor sports including skiing, trail running, backpacking, snowshoeing, hiking, camping, mountain biking, fly fishing, mountain climbing….everything under the sun including walking the dog, horse grooming, cruiser biking and tons of fun lifestyle images.
Conceiving and capturing powerful and soulful moments has been the driving force for my photography and provides the fuel for new work. I’ve spent the past fifteen years traveling the western U.S. and the world making iconic adventure sport and active lifestyle images for commercial clients.
Allan Bard once wrote that ‘there is a lure to the backcountry, to the unexplored, that is like the magnetic draw of the Promised Land to a wandering pilgrim.’ Whether deep in a wilderness river canyon or
planning locations for an upcoming shoot in the jungles of Thailand, I’ve always felt that draw. My hope is that the images I create give a window into the incredible beauty of wild places, my “Promised Land”, and that this imagery gives the inspiration for others to pursue stunning locales and memorable moments whenever possible.”