Posts Tagged ‘Mike Piggott’
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all sciences.” ~ Albert Einstein
Einstein’s opinion on mystery is used to represent the intent behind artist Mike Piggott’s new body of works, Things That I See, now on view at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery. On exhibition through April 30, 2011, the show wants to defy categorization and over-description. Mystery is important to Piggott.
He wants you to think about what you are seeing–or not seeing–when you look at his paintings. Many works depict woodblock-like renderings of mountain forests; looming, shadowy trees look to be lodgepole pines, but Piggott rarely identifies
the species; he titles his works with a Zen consciousness—you’ll find “Alpine Glow,” “The Trees are Alive,” and “Quiet Pines” as titles. These are the impressions of forests we can only appreciate when we go into the woods and very quietly contemplate their core spirits. They have much to tell us, and Piggott interprets what he is seeing and hearing using a range of intriguing hues. We feel as if we’re lying on the forest floor, gazing up, feeling the earth turn slowly beneath us, while the sky turns colors and branches of these pines encircle us in some kind of universal ceremony.
“Within every composition Piggott strives to remove the trace of the ego and create a work devoid of any evidence of the artist hand,” notes the gallery. And as the artist says,“The only way a painting has to make sense is in and of itself.”
Mike Piggott will talk about his work at a gathering on Thursday, April 14 at 5:30pm, at Tayloe Piggott Gallery, 62 S. Glenwood, Jackson.
www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
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May 14 – August 14, 2011, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff , in conjunction with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) presents “a new exhibition that draws on the rich artistic history of the U.S.-to-Canada migratory corridor while conveying its importance for sustaining wildlife populations.”
Yellowstone to Yukon: The Journey of Wildlife Art will travel to the Whyte Museum after its stay at NMWA.
“Covering some 1.3 million square miles, the Y2Y region spans five American states, two Canadian provinces and two Canadian territories, and includes the Rocky, Columbia and Mackenzie mountain ranges. Works chosen by the two museums for the exhibition link centuries as well as the migratory corridor’s wide-reaching territory, depicting wildlife in the region by such masters as Albert Bierstadt, John Clymer, Carl Rungius and Bob Kuhn,” notes the museum.
NMWA tells us that painter Dwayne Harty was commissioned by Y2Y to travel the corridor, capturing landscapes along the route rarely sketched firsthand. ”Following in the geographic footsteps of renowned wildlife artist Carl Rungius, Harty painted the 17 “areas at risk” as designated by Y2Y along the Wyoming-to-Canada corridor, with his finished works serving as a “living thread” connecting main themes throughout the Yellowstone to Yukon exhibition.”
