Coors Western Art Show | Ulrich Gleiter

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

Breakfast Table, oil, 14 x 16.

Ulrich Gleiter divides his time between St. Petersburg, Russia, and Dresden and Berlin, Germany. But, for the past several years, he also has made regular journeys to plein-air shows in the western United States, including California, Wyoming, and Colorado. Recently Gleiter received top awards at the Frank Bette Plein Air Paint Out in Alameda, CA; Plein Air Rockies in Estes Park, CO; and Wyoming Plein Air held in Cheyenne.

Having studied art at the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Sculpture, and Architecture, he says he is influenced by an array of great Russian painters, such as Isaac Levitan. Gleiter is comfortable painting in still-life, landscape, and figurative genres, he says. The Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale features one of his painterly, abstracted landscapes titled GREEN LIGHT, which he describes as an experimental undertaking. “I painted a moment of light in a green forest—a period lasting only a brief couple of minutes,” he says. A still life, titled BREAKFAST TABLE, is just as experimental, Gleiter explains, and it offers a colorful glimpse of his morning breakfast table. “I wanted to capture that early light flooding the room, without getting too descriptive with the objects,” he explains.

At 34, Gleiter is still a young painter, but he offers advice to even younger artists just starting out in their careers—advice that he himself follows. “Often we are stuck in uncertainties. One’s plans don’t seem to turn out, and obstacles seem to be everywhere. During these periods, the most important thing is to fully concentrate on your work,” he says. “All of a sudden, totally unforeseeable opportunities will unfold, and the world looks all different again.” Gleiter is represented by Marshall LeKae Fine Art Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ; Hagan Fine Art Gallery & Studio, Charleston, SC; and Galerie Ines Schulz, Dresden, Germany; www.ulrichgleiter.com.

Featured in January 2012.