Artist of Note | Jeff Love - Southwest Art Magazine

A taste for adventure

Jeff Love, Lingering on the Horizon, oil, 30 x 40.

This story was featured in the December 2018 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art December 2018 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

HAD JEFF Love been born in the 19th century, he might well have become one of the early western artists who explored and depicted the American Frontier. “My wife often teases me that I was born a hundred years too late,” chuckles the Tucson, AZ, landscape painter. A self-described adventurer himself, Love and his wife Kathy frequently set out in their RV to explore the remote canyons, deserts, and mountains of the Copper State and beyond. “We don’t see anybody else,” says Love of the routes they take. “It’s just us, nature, my palette, and paints.”

: Jeff Love, Autumn River, oil, 8 x 10.

: Jeff Love, Mountain Grandeur, oil, 24 x 36.

: Jeff Love, Ol’ #7 Kickin’ Up Dust, oil, 24 x 18.

While Love dashes off plein-air studies of the breathtaking scenery, Kathy snaps photos that become references for the artist back in his studio. “I’m usually looking for drama, whether it’s the colors of a sunset or a storm coming in,” notes Love. Occasionally, wildlife crops up in his paintings, too. “There may be a hint that man’s been there, but generally I move it back to what it would have been like before man got there,” he adds.

The artist’s love for both nature and art traces back to his childhood growing up on an Ohio farm and, later, near the Colorado Rockies. Although he studied art in high school and college, Love dedicated many years thereafter to a career in the ministry and raising a family, but he also continued to paint. In 2007, he began studying art seriously again, this time with painters like Phil Starke, Matt Smith, and Skip Whitcomb. Other influences include 19th-century artists C.M. Russell and Carl Rungius. “They were adventurers, and I feel like I have that sense, too,” says Love. “If I could go out and live in nature, I’d be happy.”

Love is represented by www.jeffloveart.com.