contemporary landscape painting
It has been such a mild summer here on our piece of coastline. I’ve been wondering when the hot days would arrive. So often we get a good blast of heat in October and as the summer ticked away, with cooler than usual temperatures, I kept wondering if September and October were going to be blazing. The heat always shows up, it’s just a matter of when.
Evening Sizzle, 14x14”, oil on birch panel
Summer is closing in and the longest day of the year is on the horizon. Sullivan Goss is launching new shows at the gallery with an opening reception happening this week for First Thursday events. I have a brand new painting fresh off the easel being shown in the Summer Salon in their back gallery. I’m so honored to be hanging with artists John Nava, Hank Pitcher, Nathan Huff and Susan McDonnell, to name just a few. AND I get to be on the wall next two lovely Lockwood DeForest paintings.
Patricia Chidlaw is in the front gallery with a beautiful show celebrating the swimming pool and the in main gallery FORMALIZE: Strategies for Abstraction, an exhibition that emphasizes the formalist view of abstract art.
So much to see and enjoy as we slide into the new season.
Western Shore 48x24” Oil on Birch Panel
A warm thank you to Sundance for showcasing 16 new paintings online. Represented are paintings from seashore to mountain top, estuary birds and cloud filled skies.
Wild Pines, 12x48” Oil on Birch Panel
My show concluded at the end of September of this year and what an amazing show. I felt like I ran a marathon at a sprint putting together the 54 pieces that were delivered to the gallery in July.
By the end of the show all the gas had been consumed from my tank. My normal pattern would be to celebrate by traveling somewhere and filling my eyes and heart back up before returning to the studio. Alas, it has been another grounded year.
Life continues and despite being home there are shows still on the horizon. Right now at Sullivan Goss you can find my work in both the annual 100 GRAND exhibition as well as the Winter Salon.
Sky Sea 40, 4x4”, Gouache on Arches Board - 100 GRAND Exhibition at Sullivan Goss Santa Barbara
I hope the season finds you all well and thriving. May your creativity find you hard at work. Happy Holy Days.
Campus Tide 5, 28x40”, oil on cradled birch panel - Winter Salon, Sullivan Goss
Westward Ho, 30x40” oil on birch panel
Every day alchemy
details of new work with mixed color on palette
Winter Reverie 18x40” oil on birch panel
Sullivan Goss will be hosting my first solo show in 5 years this Summer. I know! right?! Where did the time go? I’m sure some of you remember The River’s Journey, a huge endeavor and project that resulted in 4 individual exhibits spanning from February 2018 through June 2019. I was preoccupied and absorbed and then, you know, life happens. It’s not that I haven’t been working but other things needed tending and now my studio is bursting. I look forward to sharing new work again and I’m sure by the summer there will be several shows worth. Good luck to Susan sorting and finding the show within the piles.
The Sundance “Winter’s Thaw 2021” catalog is in the post with a couple beautiful rooms, including of few of my paintings. See all availalbe work ONLINE.
Left: Watering Hole 12x12” oil on birch panel
Right: Nestling 12x12” oil on birch panel
Sullivan Goss Gallery installation
Press release from the gallery:
Sullivan Goss is pleased to offer an exhibition devoted to quietude for the new year. Battered by the pandemic, a hotly contested election, and an atmosphere marked by dread and hysteria, Gallery curators felt that the world could use a space for peace and contemplation. Drawing from its artists’ studios, collector consignments, and its own treasure vault, Sullivan Goss was able to assemble sixteen works spanning from 1890 to today that invite a meditative or peaceful state of mind. Installed with ample breathing room in the Gallery’s largest exhibition space, Sullivan Goss hopes to offer a refuge to weary artists, collectors, and visitors.
Each work has been carefully selected both to typify the artist’s best work and to help viewers slip away into reverie. Stylistically, the works range from late 19th and early 20th century Tonalist and Impressionist evocations by National Academicians Leon Dabo (1864-1960), Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932), and Colin Campbell Cooper to midcentury and contemporary “spacey” abstractions by William Dole (1917-1983) and Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) to contemporary Tonalist and abstract works by Gallery stalwarts like Whitney Brooks Abbott, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Ken Bortolazzo, Susan McDonnell, Chris Peters, Nicole Strasburg, and Sarah Vedder.
Art can be an effective emotional trigger. High contrast works with bright, hyper-saturated colors and dynamic compositions can excite us – stimulating increased energy and mental activity. Paintings and drawings that use a more restrained and harmonized palette or whose imagery and compositions invoke the pastoral or the dreamy have the opposite effect. They calm us. They soothe. Those in search of peace & quiet are hereby advised: you’ll find it at 11 East Anapamu Street for the months of January and February.
Morning Estuary, 48x24”, Oil on Birch Panel
Storm in the Valley (right) 18x48” & Receding Storm (left) 18x48”
Despite the current state of the State of California and the rolling shut downs, a new restaurant has been born, La Paloma Cafe. Words from their own website:
"We welcome you back in time, back in Santa Barbara history, back to La Paloma! After 37 years "the dove" will once again take wing on the iconic corner of Anacapa and Ortega. And like an old friend, the celebrated neon sign will once again state the original letters: La Paloma Cafe. Early in Santa Barbara's history, Ortega Street was "restaurant row" and a hub of activity. Opened in 1938, La Paloma Cafe was the premier Mexican restaurant on the strip and was frequented by stage and screen stars. During Old Spanish Days, vaqueros and cattlemen tied their horses in front of the corner bar building to wet their whistles. The old main house and patio buzzed with energy day and night where locals enjoyed the Luera family's hospitality delivered"
The new owners at Acme Hospitality have given the space a fresh clean face lift and added a second deck for outdoor dining (complete with heat lamps). The interior is spare and beautiful and many of my landscape paintings adorn the walls.
More on the restaurant HERE and to order take out check the MENU.
January Tide 40x40” oil on birch panel
Pacific Coast Fog 60x36” was recently finished and installed into the home of a happy client. They had been looking for the perfect something for this location and when they found it the painting was just too small. We figured out the perfect size and recallibrated the image for the new dimensions and zhuzhed up the color. Happy holidays from Santa Barbara.
Pacific Coast Fog 60x36”, oil on birch panel ©2020
Click on image to take you to Sullivan Goss!
It is that amazing time of year again when Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara puts on the annual 100 GRAND show. Gathering their stable of artists and a slew of local talent it is always the show not to be missed. It is a great opportunity to see work from new artists and find work from artists you love at an affordable grab. Start your collection or add to a growing one.
My contribution is a trio of gouache paintings representing a koi pond visited on the island of Oahu.
A merry start to the holiday for all. Be well. Stay safe.
Allegro 3.75x4” gouache on arches board frame to 13x11”
Animato, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board
Con Brio, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board
Signs of winter are showing today, the trees are dropping the last of their leaves as the wind blows through the emptying branches and big clouds from the passing storm linger in the blue sky.
Bare Limbs Painting 29.5 x 19.5” oil on birch panel at Sundance
Bare Limbs painting now at Sundance
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New landscapes images of mountains and sky by Nicole Strasburg.
Sky Sea framed gouache paintings by Nicole Strasburg.
Miniature gouache of Antelope Valley Pronghorn by Nicole Strasburg.