Posts Tagged ‘Tayloe Piggott Gallery’
Sometimes it all boils down to the boat.
Now on exhibition at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery, artist Kathryn Lynch’s River Tugs is an opus to the painter’s surroundings, and her naive, folk-like painting style is refreshing. It’s cool to have these paintings of tugboats and other vessels in Jackson, because they’re subject matter not often offered up in our mountain town. Lynch leaves out nautical details and concentrates on each boat’s essence—for her, these tugs are “symbols of the ongoing solitary traveler in each of us.” The theme is one we’ve picked up on in the most recent Piggott gallery shows, and these works encourage us to give pause—and that’s a good thing. No rushing. Lynch’s tonal, broad strokes, rendered in grays, greens, orange and blues, suggest play even as they suggest a certain somber observation of our collective psyche.
As children, pushing our Fisher Price tugboats around and around in the bath made the prospect of approaching bedtime much more welcome. Splashing play, followed by a dive under the blankets and dream time.
Showing concurrently at Tayloe Piggott is Nicole Charbonnet’s body of new works, Wild Things. Charbonnet’s layered, fresco-like works “serve as a metaphor for the phenomenon of recollection,” and portray animals found in the wild and iconic wild West horses and cowboy themes. Charbonnet also explores our own perceptions of self through non-human imagery; her work expresses a longing—and also a reverence—for days gone by.
She sees in her process of “erasing” the paint and overlaying additional layers something that both celebrates and criticizes the values portrayed by her subjects. “I’m raising questions about their current viability in a changed world. I make them look old and tired, though still beautiful, to ask if it’s time to relegate them to memory.”
A New Orleans native, Charbonnet says her home city greatly influences her work. “If you watch New Orleans, you see everywhere the effects of the process of time on surfaces,” she says. adding “That’s true of every place, every person.” The artist builds up her paintings with layers of textures, images, words, fabrics and collaged papers from all manner of sources. Says Charbonnet,“Nothing is ever completely gone, so even if you don’t hold a conscious memory of something, it forms the fabric and texture of who you are. I try to re-create the process your mind goes through in becoming what it is. You see something, and it reminds you of something else, another context, another feeling, even while the original image remains.”
River Tugs and Wild Things remain on exhbition through February 7, 2012. www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
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Trailside Galleries annual Holiday Miniatures Show opens with a gallery reception on Thursday, December 29, 5-8:00 pm. The gallery is excited to début “exquisite” new miniature paintings from most of the gallery’s roster of
artists. The gallery will feature new works by such noted Western artists as Kyle Sims, Dan Smith, Adam Smith, Joseph Sulkowski, Guy Coheleach, Robert Duncan, Nicholas Coleman, David Mayer, and many others.
The show’s opening takes place in conjunction with that evening’s downtown Jackson Holiday ArtWalk. While you are there, venture upstairs to see what’s new at the Jackson Hole Art Auction offices; Trailside produces the annual Fall Arts Festival event in conjunction with the Gerald Peters Gallery. For more information, phone 307-733-3186. www.trailsidegalleries.com …
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Thursday, December 22, wildlife artist Mary Roberson gives an artist’s demonstration at Altamira Fine Art, 3-5:00 pm. An artist’s conversation, “My Sketch Book,” will be presented by Roberson at 6:00 pm.
Altamira takes its name from Spain’s famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings of wild beasts. Of all Altamira’s artists, Roberson is most connected to that wild spirit, and inner knowledge that animals inform us.
Not What I am Doing, How I am Feeling, a show of new works by Alissa Davies, opens Wednesday, November 16, 6-9:00 pm, at Elevated Grounds, Wilson, Wyoming. “Come enjoy drinks and nibbles and Alissa’s new artwork,” says Davies’ Facebook page. The munchies will no doubt be yummy, but the real treat will be Davies’ art.
I know, because I have some of her paintings. Though Davies is most often identified as Dancers’ Workshop’s communications director, she’s been painting for years. Think back, and you’ll recall
Davies’ amorphous, abstract paintings hanging from tree branches, fastened with clothespins, floating on a gentle breeze in DW’s Executive Director Babs Case’s back yard. Ah, those were the days….our first pop-up art shows (pssst: that link to Chicago’s Pop Up Art Loop was inadvertent, but ain’t it cool? Store windows, people! Store windows!) happened at Harpo’s Art Fair, a summertime event Case generously hosted at her home. My little Alissa paintings are pretty tiny—maybe 4 x 8″, the size of a postcard. Davies is also an Art Fair alumni. I’ve bought from her there, too. Her little paintings make great gifts, but it’s damn hard to give them away.
The title of this show,” says Davies, “is an overall mantra for my life. I want to feel myself moving through the days, the months, the years. Simply, I am striving to be more present to experiences that make me happy, expose me to beauty, challenge me and make me assertive. I want my artistic process to be the same, a discovery.”
Davies’ paintings are organic, and they’re really collages. Bleached corrugated paper, colored strips, paint and graphite pencil are arranged like pebbles in a little tidal pool, or a child’s collection of special objects. It feels like invisible river currents nudge Davies’ shapes around, and once those shapes and objects are perfectly placed, the water is still. It gives me great joy to look at my Alissa paintings.
Native New Yorker and artist Jane Rosen’s exhibition Two Natures opens at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery this month. On exhibition through August 23, 2011, the show opens with a reception on Thursday, July 14th, 5-8 pm at the gallery.
Visiting any great museum’s ancient collections of Egyptian, Greek, or Native American artifacts, I’m cloaked in hushed reverence. I expect Two Natures elicits similar response. Winds of time have worn these sculptures down to their souls. What’s left is an exquisite silent truth.
Though born on the East Coast, Rosen “found herself captivated by the accessibility of nature on a visit to the West Coast.” Rosen’s work channels ancient world cultures; she has said that 
Eskimo, Native American and Egyptian art histories inspire her. She’s also influenced by daVinci and Michelangelo. A chapel, a graveyard. Rosen’s sculptures stand like Stonehenge’s rock pillars, full of mystery and great powers. These animal forms are not sex specific; but they recall the Acropolis Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion.
“Rosen’s drawings act as her journal where she studies and understands the form before chiseling a limestone sculpture or hand blowing a glass bird,” the gallery says. She relishes process,
the “alchemy.” Works reach their final form after Rosen scratches away and adds layers of sumi-e ink, paint, coffee, beeswax, Korean water color and marble mix.
Gallery owner Tayloe Piggott likens seeing Rosen’s studio to “witnessing the flash of spirit that Brancusi sought to capture.”
“With this perspective framing my vision I capture the profound essence of nature and art seen through the animal life. It was our reciprocal vision of the life force that instinctually and immediately connected me to Jane’s work. Her art, whether bird, fish or fowl, resonates with the fundamentality of the being’s spirit. The word “essence” is defined as “the permanent as contrasted with the temporary element of being.” Her sculpture is essence,” Piggott says.
The gallery has also collected several stunning Dale Chihuly glass vessels. Transluscent and fluid, they provide sparkling juxtaposition to Rosen’s avian sculptures.
For more information, email art@tayloepiggottgallery.com.
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Wyoming Gallery, upstairs at Jack Dennis Sports, welcomes artists Meredith Campbell, Ruth Rawhouser, and Teri Billingham at an opening reception Friday, July 15, 4-7:30 pm.
Campbell paints wildlife scenes on wood; she began painting functional pieces, but her work evolved into the fine art arena. Not long ago she began creating oil-on-canvas animal portraits. Rawhouser paints en plein air, relishing the
world as it is in any given moment. Interestlingly, she never paints in fences or other signs of humananity’s presence in the Wyoming landscapes she loves. Jackson native Teri Billingham’s stained glass panels reflect the artist’s love of the Tetons and surrounding landscapes, its wildlife and inspiring childhood memories.
For information, contact Mindy at jdwyominggallery.com. www.jdwyominggallery.com
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Here it comes again….the Art Fair Rap!
Dude, it’s July, so it’s time to share
‘Bout that annual gig, the Jackson Hole Art Fair!
Or, “Art Fair Jackson Hole” as it prefers to be called;
Nobody asked me. I’m not involved.
Hey man, don’t be bored!
Sometimes Harrison Ford
Comes to check out the art, and he brings Flockhart.
Buy ceramics, toys, fibers – this poem’s the town crier
For an Art Fair Weekend, come rain or come shine-er.
Paintings, baskets, jewels, tents
Sunscreen, beer & fivers
All make for a day art lovers could die for!
See the Fair! Have Fun! This rap is all done.
The Jackson Hole Art Association Art Fair 2011 dates are July 15 – 17 & August 19 – 21. The fun happens at Miller Park, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Daily entrance fee is $3. www.artassociation.org
“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.”
Parallel shows by Idaho artists Cynthia Stoetzer and Valerie Stuart begin at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery on October 25, and remain up through December 12, 2010; but the shows will be officially opened together in a new venue for the gallery, an Open House. Saturday, November 6, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm the public is welcome to stop by the gallery for an open “Art Conversation.” Throughout the day visitors may drop in to talk with the artists, view the work, and enjoy refreshments.
Stuart and Stoetzer will talk about their process, experience and challenges as artists — this opportunity, in tandem with an atmosphere likened to a home setting, is meant to be a satisfying experience for all attendees. A satisfying and dynamic mix of gallery and inside-the-artist’s-studio.
Stoetzer’s show In the Leaves and On the Plains expands upon the artist’s style of combining elements of European and American Impressionists, with a bit of Pointillism in the painterly mix. The subject, though, is Stoetzer’s western landscapes. As large as 48″ x 60″, Stoetzer’s paintings are known for their ability to shimmer.
“My aim now is to reclaim landscape as the serious and cherished subject it has always been,” says the artist. “And to celebrate that love of the specific place and time. So when I paint a grove of trees, you can see that they are Aspen trees as they grow in that particular way in the Rockies. They’re not just an idea, or a symbol, of a tree. It’s been said that to give one’s attention is the greatest act of love, and when I’m painting an aspen tree, I’m giving it my full attention.”
Stuart’s Incontado mixed media works recall Renaissance frescos. This series, her “Mura Venete” (Venetian Walls), incorporates plaster, oil
paint, and resin. Stuart uses a layering process and “chromatic key construction,” creating great luminous depth on her canvases. A combination of color, tension, language and experience speak to the emotional “self.” And Stuart’ self has had many lives; the artist has worked as an actor, stunt driver and in fashion design before devoting herself full time to her painting.
www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
Contact information for artists: Valerie Stuart, valeriestuart@cox.net, (208)720-6115 Cynthia Stoetzer, (208)354-0112, guild@silverstar.com
Item #2
One of Jackson’s coolest cultural traditions is the creation and admiring of Parejas del Día de los Muertos- –Day of the Dead Figures—around town. The Teton County Library never omits marking this Latino tradition of creating and displaying colorful, festive altars honoring the circle of life, and those who have gone before us.
October 23 & 30, celebrate “Day of the Dead” by creating and decorating novios with the artisan Oton Baez, at the Library. Class offered in two continuous Saturday sessions. Registration required and has been ongoing as of Oct. 11. For ages 7 to adult. Ordway Auditorium. Free. For more information, contact Latino Programs Coordinator Patty Rocha, 733-2164 ext. 237 or procha@tclib.org . In Spanish & English.
Item #3:
It’s hard to paint the night.
But, for wildlife and many painters of landscape and wildlife, night bewitches. Wildlife emerges, gathers and responds to the deepening light. Artists strive to capture the effects of moonlight and the stars on a blackening sky and the earth below. The National Museum of Wildlife Art’s new show, Dusk to Dawn: Nocturnes from the Collection, opens October 30, 2010, remains on display through May 1, 2011, and “combines master works of the genre drawn from the museum’s collection with an exploration of nocturnal animal behavior.”
My favorite present-day “local” night-sky artist is Bill Sawczuk. Sublime, twinkling, translucent nocturnal skies. And one of my favorite wildlife/landscape works is Rockwell Kent’s 1920′s stylized “Mt. Equinox, Vermont,” an oil painting featured in this show.
This exhibit spotlights historic painters such as Georges-Frederick Rotig, Frank Tenney Johnson and Albert Bierstadt, as well as more contemporary painters; Lars Jonsson and Bob Kuhn are two examples. For more information contact the Museum, or log onto the website, www.wildlifeart.org.