Show Preview | Legacy Gallery: Two Shows

Scottsdale, AZ, November 8-18

Kenny McKenna, Face Rock, oil, 24 x 36.

Kenny McKenna, Face Rock, oil, 24 x 36.

This story was featured in the November 2012 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Order the Southwest Art November 2012 print edition here, or purchase the Southwest Art November 2012 digital download here. Or simply subscribe to Southwest Art magazine and never miss a story!

Two shows this month at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, combine venerable artistic traditions with contemporary vision. The first show features works by Marina Dieul and Hsin-Yao Tseng and opens on November 8, with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. A one-person show of Arizona landscape paintings by Kenny McKenna, entitled A Centennial Celebration of Arizona, opens on November 10, with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Both shows continue through November 18.

Marina Dieul, Souris Lapin, oil, 9 x 11.

Marina Dieul, Souris Lapin, oil, 9 x 11.

Marina Dieul and Hsin-Yao Tseng were both finalists in the Portrait Society of America’s International Portrait Competition this year. Dieul’s acclaimed entry, LA GRANDE AILE (“the big wing”), is among almost 20 paintings she brings to the Legacy show. The work depicts two babies sitting on a trompe l’oeil ledge that forms the deep frame of a painting of an exquisite white wing. The image, like many of Dieul’s paintings, came to her as a vision without abstract concepts or words. A possible meaning suggested by one viewer: Babies remember being angels before birth. “A painting that is successful is one that allows everyone to find his or her own interpretation,” Dieul says. Among the artist’s other works in the show are trompe l’oeil frames out of which peek soft, furry animals, such as rabbits or mice.

Hsin-Yao Tseng, I Never Told You, oil, 30 x 20.

Hsin-Yao Tseng, I Never Told You, oil, 30 x 20.

Tseng’s Portrait Society entry, I NEVER TOLD YOU, is part of a recent series that explores the range of emotions in relationships. In the painting, Tseng imagines a boy and girl on the final day of school before the classmates go their separate ways. They each hold yearbooks in which they have confessed really liking each other. But both have been too shy to let the other know, and now it is too late. The relationship series “reminds people of simple humanity through ordinary things,” Tseng explains. “I’m trying to capture simple concepts like joy and love.” Along with figurative works, the show presents Tseng’s cityscapes, in which the excitement of urban energy is expressed in a freer, more impressionistic style.

Landscape painter Kenny McKenna, who lives in Oklahoma City but has always loved the desert, pays homage to Arizona’s 2012 statehood centennial with a dozen paintings of both spectacular and subtly beautiful parts of the Grand Canyon state. McKenna skillfully renders such landforms as layered, red-walled canyons; meandering rivers; and the strong light and visually delicate vegetation of the Sonoran Desert.

McKenna’s first career spanned more than a decade as a touring keyboard player in rock and blues bands. He made a second dramatic shift about 10 years ago when he abandoned his former highly romantic, idealized style of landscape painting. Today, the nationally recognized 62-year-old artist is “more interested in accuracy and color. I tell the story more like it is,” he says. Legacy Gallery general manager Scott Jones notes that McKenna’s northern Rockies imagery is a favorite in Legacy’s Jackson, WY, location, while “his desert Southwest paintings attract equal acclaim in our Scottsdale gallery.” —Gussie Fauntleroy

contact information
480.945.1113
www.legacygallery.com

Featured in the November 2012 issue of Southwest Art magazine–click below to purchase:
Southwest Art magazine November 2012 digital download
Southwest Art magazine November 2012 print edition
Or subscribe to Southwest Art magazine and never miss a story!


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