Human Portrait by Tom Eneas |
By Bonnie Gangelhoff and Kristin Bucher
Tom Eneas
At 28 Tom Eneas is quickly distinguishing himself as a talented wood carver. In 1998 he was chosen as an artist-in-residence for Down From the Shimmering Skies: Masks of the Northwest Coast, a major show at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, B.C. While Eneas works mainly in wood carving masks, paddles, drums, and boxes a few of his pieces are also cast in bronze. He believes one purpose of his work is to pass on the art, stories, and myths of Northwest Coast people and his Coastal and Interior Salish ancestors. Eneas has studied with Kevin Cranmer and is inspired by other master carvers like Norman Tait. In the future Eneas wants to create monumental sculpture and totem poles, incorporating Northwest Coast symbols and traditions. Eneas is represented by Douglas Reynolds Gallery, Vancouver, B.C.; Inuit Gallery, Vancouver, B.C.; Arctic Raven Gallery, Friday Harbor, WA; and Wright Publishing Co., Albuquerque, NM. —BG
Richard Boyer
When Richard Boyer travels to Europe every summer, he does more than pack a camera like your average tourist. He packs paints, an easel, canvases the artistic tools that allow him to chronicle his sojourns. From the 15th-century farmhouse his in-laws
Cloth Morning by Richard Boyer |
own in Sweden to canals in Amsterdam and Brugges, Belgium, Boyer paints studies of various scenes and takes them back to his Utah studio, where he makes them into larger works. “I really like painting en plein air, taking my stuff over to Europe and setting up on some street corner,” he says.
But Boyer does not limit himself to European scenes alone. A graduate of the University of Utah, he studied under portrait painter Alvin Gitten and still enjoys depicting the human form. He also visits Santa Fe often, adding the southwestern landscape to his oeuvre. Boyer is represented by May Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ; Joe Wade Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM; Total Arts Gallery, Taos, NM; Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA; and Howard/Mandville Gallery, Seattle, WA. —LB
Evening on the Snake River by Suzanne Owens |
Suzanne Owens
Native Texan Suzanne Owens paints the landscape of the West in both oils and pastels. She generally divides her time equally between the two media, but lately she finds herself working in oils more often. “Over the past year I’ve been spending more time painting outdoors, and oils are much better for plein-air painting,” she says. “When I’m working in my studio, though, I do mostly pastels.”
Owens’ outdoor painting ad-ventures take her all over the West. Church at Rociada, for example, was painted near the ranch she and her husband own in northern New Mexico, and she created Evening on the Snake River during one of her frequent trips to Jackson, WY. “I’ve always been an outdoor person,” says Owens, who has studied with well-known landscape painters including Clyde Aspevig and Scott Christensen. “I’m amazed at how much better you can see things outside.” Owens is represented by Ann Hughes Fine
Church at Rociada by Suzanne Owens |
Art, Dallas, TX; Riverbend Fine Art, Marble Falls, TX; and Gallery Fifteen, Clovis, NM. —KB
Featured in “Artists to Watch” August 1999