Celebrating variety in landscape painting
By Kristin Hoerth
Looking for Tom Joad by Joe Paquet.
This story was featured in the February 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
EARLIER THIS winter, on a somber gray morning, I was driving west of Fort Collins, CO, where there’s a striking section of hogback—a prominent ridge of rock with a narrow crest and steep slopes on both sides. This landform is visible in many areas along the Front Range, and it’s always fascinated me; it’s one of the places where Mother Nature seems to be pointedly reminding us of the Earth’s geological history. On this particular morning the hogback looked even more remarkable thanks to a light blanket of snow that had fallen the day before, creating strong contrast against the reddish rock.
Just a week earlier, I’d been driving through a landscape that couldn’t have been more different. As it happens, the sky was equally bleak, but this time I was crossing the gently rolling farmland near the western shore of Lake Michigan. Aside from the slight variations between hills and valleys, there was little to disrupt the gray-brown fields and forests that seemed to go on forever. These two experiences stood out to me as very small examples of the staggering variety of the landscape around us—and that doesn’t begin to take into account the canyons, deserts, coastlines, and mountains in other corners of the country. One could spend a lifetime touring the American landscape from coast to coast and never run out of unique scenery to appreciate.
In our pages this month, we bring you a broad sampling of this varied landscape through the work of four talented painters. Clark Mitchell focuses on California’s coastline, farmland, and deserts, while Sabrina Stiles paints intimate scenes of trees, ponds, and prairies from her home base in Colorado. Rick Stevens is drawn to the aspen forests around his home near Santa Fe, and Joe Paquet captures commonplace scenes both rural and suburban around his Minnesota studio. What’s more, each artist brings his or her own distinct style to the landscape, offering yet another layer of diversity: Mitchell simplifies shapes and takes a sweeping perspective; Stiles prefers a subdued palette, soft edges, and blurred lines; Stevens loves texture and an earthy palette; and Paquet favors lush paint with loose strokes.
Sometimes it’s easy to think of landscapes as one simple category of paintings. And while there can be a lot of similar artwork out there, there’s also infinite potential for unique expression. We’ve brought you work that truly stands out, and we hope it inspires you to appreciate the awesome landscapes that are never far away, no matter what corner of the country you call home.
This story was featured in the February 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art February 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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