The Judson Gallery of Contemporary and Traditional Art
DAVID JUDSON, DIRECTOR
Presents in the Main Gallery

A View From Here:
A Group Exhibition of Contemporary Landscapes
Curated by Prof. Ronald E. Steen, Art Historian and Art Educator

          This exhibition presents the current state of the theme of landscape in contemporary art, including the land, the city, and water in Southern California art specifically as it exists outside of the historical plein air painting style. The work of 29 artists included in the exhibition are, Peter Alexander,Sandow Birk,John Brosio, Phoebe Brunner, Darlene Campbell , Jennifer Celio, Patricia Chidlaw, Wes Christensen, James Doolin, Sharon Ellis, Sylvi Herrick, David Hines, David Hockney, Mark Innerst, Peter Krausz, David Ligare, Norman Lundin, Rebecca Morales, Marina Moevs, Barrie Mottishaw, Shirley Pettibone, Roxene Rockwell, Lezley Saar, Stephanie Sanchez, Richard Sedivy, Luis Serrano, Greg Skol, Jon Swihart, & Marc Trujillo. Works are loaned by artists, collectors, art institutions and galleries. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

 PUBLIC OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, February 9, 2008, 7-10 p.m.

Exhibition dates: Monday, February 11, 2008 through Saturday, May 10, 2008
Gallery hours: Mon.-Fri. 10 to 3, and 2nd Saturdays, 7-10 p.m.

          The theme of landscape in western and eastern art has a long, prestigious, well known and documented history, too lengthy and detailed to recount here. The term ‘landscape” is generally extended to include, not just land, but country, city, and seascapes as well as elements dealing with air, light, atmosphere, color and tone.

          Briefly and for the purposes of this exhibition, in western art the theme of landscape historically extends from the Greek Period, primarily known in literature with a few extant painted examples, through its flowering in Seventeenth century Holland, with significant developments made by Nineteenth century French and American artists. The historical landscape theme was extended in the late nineteenth century from the French Impressionists movement into plein air painting on the east and west coasts of the United States. Artists in Southern California made contributions and sustained this en plein air style through the incorporation of significant regionalistic aspects such as the specifics of light, color, temperature, tone and locals through the mid-Twentieth century and as contrasted to Twentieth century international modernism.

          This exhibition presents the current preoccupations by Southern California fine artists not working exclusively in the plein air style, but exploring the theme of landscape in all of its current contemporary musings on theme, content, and composition and at the same time embracing modern technical art forms. This development appears to have emerged in the early 1980s. All of the 29 artists included have on going relationships with well established art galleries, therefore long distinguished careers with strong collector bases. It is interesting to note that while the majority live in Southern California, not all of them reside here, but do continually exhibit here and are embraced by the available platforms for the visual dialogue of this theme, which there gallery history and career data supports. A couple of younger yet mature artistically artists are included due to their thoughts on and skills with the theme.

          What this group exhibition and its art, in a contemporary landscape aesthetic, illuminates are as follows: nocturnal views which include artificial lighting in air transportation sites in the work of Peter Alexander; insights and comments on human interaction with the land by Sandow Birk; the phenomenon of an imminent tornado by John Brosio; the all pervasive quality of sky and light by Phoebe Brunner; sophisticated witty topical representations of contemporary societies impositions on the land in an icon format by Darlene Campbell; graphic images, sans color, small for close inspection, drawings on wood panel, which illuminate tiny details of nature by Jennifer Celio; the intense colors of a commercial urban site by Patricia Chidlaw; a prospect of flowers in a small format meticulously worked in colored pencil by Wes Christensen; a complex, dense, jumbled contemporary cityscape by James Doolin; the use of alkyd as a medium to reveal the mystery and magic of nature by Sharon Ellis; the assemblage of materials, some found, to draw forth notions of landscape by Sylvi Herrick; the rigorous compositional structure of night by David Hines; a specific landscape has been aesthetically altered to indicate a moving focus and executed in a graphic print media by David Hockney; the poetic essence, rather than the specifics of a location by Mark Innerst; landscape represented as the intensity of an emotional exile made permanent by the secco fresco technique by Peter Krausz; the beauty of an panoramic sweep of land and the expansive monumentality of sky by David Ligare; the foggy aspect of land viewed through a grill pained window, accompanied with morning coffee by Norman Lundin; landscape depicted and segmented onto three separate aluminum panels by Rebecca Morales; a surrealistic take on a waterscape by Marina Moevs; the use and application of paint strokes to evoke not just the plein air painting style, but the variety and excitement of nature by Barrie Mottishaw; aspects of nature as vivid, intense, heat saturated areas, not only as spots of color by Shirley Pettibone; collage elements arranged and colored paper manipulated on a surface giving rise to notions, not specifics, of landscape by Roxene Rockwell; a network of ink-drawn roots, vines, drips, sprouts and foliage in large scale having its bases in autistic communication by Lezley Saar; a site specific city view of a river rendered as light, shadow and color from a precise vantage point by Stephanie Sanchez; an inventively composed and painted as well as wood constructed landscape by Richard Sedivy; the inner pulsating aspects of land rendered over numerous separate engagements with the landscape by Luis Serrano; the compositional device of an unobstructed low horizon which illuminates the depth of land and implies its width culminating in the realization pictorially of the vastness of nature and space by Greg Skol; the specifics and at the same time an homage to a historical landscape place by Jon Swihart; and the genresque depiction of a contemporary cityscape by Marc Trujillo.

          There is in all of this landscape work presented in this exhibition another, and one might say new, contemporary aesthetic operating. One that is not attempting to be better than but distinctively different from historical predecessors, such as description, classical interpretations, academic rigor, romantic view, the politics of realism, city vs the country and impressionistic painting techniques, to name just a few. The present contemporary aesthetic embraces themes dealing with night and artificial light (Alexander), social commentary (Birk, Campbell & Doolin), natures destructive capabilities (Brosio), vastness and beauty of sky (Brunner), the intensity of color in a commercial urban environment (Chidlaw), essence vs description (Innerst), expansive monumentality (Ligare & Skol), atmospheric condition (Lundin), the surrealistic impulse (Moevs & Saar), the pulse of nature (Serrano & Mottishaw), regionalistic light and heat (Pettibone), historical homage (Swihart), city waterscape (Sanchez), and genresque cityscape (Trujillo). As for techniques used, they are again distinctively contemporary, such as drawing on a gessoed panel (Celio), the use of colored pencil as a final medium rather than as for study (Christensen), the use of alkyd as a medium of expression (Ellis), collage (Rockwell), assemblage (Herrick & Sedivy), stress on compositional structure (Hines), visual stress placed on a print media utilized (Hockney), pigment on aluminum (Morales), and the use of secco fresco framed (Krausz). What is evident in this body of contemporary work is the artists creative memory, imagination and sense of layout and composition which thus plays a larger part in the work. In addition and still sadly significant, it is work not limited solely to male oriented art making.