March 3, 2014

Contemporary Landscapes

Canyonlands, 2011, oil on canvas, 23" x 78"

LewAllen Galleries presents Scottsdale’s show

“Reimagining the Contemporary Landscape:

New Views and Interpretations”

There have been many skilled artists in history and even today who can reproduce precisely the forms and vistas they see before them. But as landscape painting has evolved over the years, artists have increasingly felt a freedom to do more than replicate. Many, including the nine artists in LewAllen Galleries Scottsdale’s show, have departed from conventional traditions to approach landscape painting in a more interpretive manner.

The exhibition demonstrates more adventuresome approaches by contemporary artists seeking to respond in their work to the rhythms and geometry of the landscape. Driven by a desire to depict not only a visual image of a place, but the feeling that is elicited when one experiences a place, these artists employ styles ranging from hyper-realism to gestural abstraction to convey a deep sense of emotionality and presence in these contemporary renditions of the traditional landscape genre.

Works in the show are by noted artists Christopher Benson, Bernard Chaet, John Fincher, Woody Gwyn and Forrest Moses, among others.