Emerging Artists | Anton Nowels

Desert still lifes en plein air

This story was featured in the May 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art May 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

WHILE PHOENIX, AZ, painter Anton Nowels wouldn’t describe himself as a landscape artist, he certainly exudes as much enthusiasm for his homeland’s sunlit deserts and turquoise skies as a landscape artist would. Likewise, if you ask the artist about his key influences, he’ll mention landscape painters whose works eloquently capture the dramatic light and monumental spirit of the West, from G. Russell Case to Maynard Dixon. “I come from an experimental background,” says Nowels, “so I wanted to find a way to set up that landscape experience on a microscale.”

Enter the artist’s outdoor still lifes, which feature classic motifs like fruits, flowers, pottery, and vases. Nowels’ oil paintings, however, are not an homage to these objects so much as a vibrant tribute to the dynamic color relationships they display beneath the Copper State’s brilliant sunshine. The Phoenix native often sets up his tableaux in a local desert wash. “When I started putting objects outside,” he says, “I could pick up on all those notes I’d been seeing in the landscape all my life.”

Nowels’ foray into fine art began with life-drawing classes when he was 18. From there, he entered an interdisciplinary art program at Arizona State University, where he explored abstract painting and learned the value of creative play and experimentation. His training in color came later, at the Scottsdale Artists’ School. “I took my first workshop with Ned Mueller, and he asked me if I was color blind,” Nowels recalls with a bellow of laughter. “I wasn’t thinking about the logic of color at all.”

Today it’s a very different story for the artist, whose work appeared in the American Impressionist Society’s latest national juried exhibition. He has twice been a guest artist at the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts’ Maynard Dixon Country event, and Nowels now teaches his own work-shops on color and plein-air principles at the reputable Scottsdale Artists’ School. He also continues to learn from landscape painter Glenn Rennell, who drew his attention to the works of artists like colorist Josef Albers (1888-1976) and American Impressionist Henry Hensche (1899-1992). Nowels himself, an assiduous experimenter, enjoys employing a variety of techniques and styles. In a signature work by the artist, you’ll likely spot vivid pops of color, but keep your eye out for other chromatic twists, too. “I like to play between colorist, tonalist, naturalist, and expressionist approaches,” he says. —Kim Agricola

representation
Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts, Mt. Carmel, UT; www.antonnowels.com.

This story was featured in the May 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art May 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

MORE RESOURCES FOR ART COLLECTORS & ENTHUSIASTS
• Subscribe to Southwest Art magazine
• Learn how to paint & how to draw with downloads, books, videos & more from North Light Shop
• Sign up for your Southwest Art email newsletter & download a FREE ebook