Jackson, WY
Astoria Fine Art, August 1-20
Josh Clare, September Sky, oil, 12 x 16.
This story was featured in the August 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art August 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
“THROUGHOUT THE summer, we like to keep things fluid, trying to feature our most popular artists,” says Greg Fulton, managing partner at Astoria Fine Art. To that end, he traditionally schedules a series of “showcase” events—10-day-long solo shows presenting the latest works by gallery stalwarts. While no formal opening receptions are planned this year, Fulton expects each artist to visit the gallery during his or her show, so “some customers will get meet-and-greets,” he says, impromptu and socially distanced though they may be. All of the new artworks are posted to Astoria’s website three or four days before each opening.
The month of August kicks off with about 15 recent oil paintings and watercolors from Joseph Alleman—one of the first artists to join Astoria when it opened two decades ago—on view August 1-10. “He’s so multitalented that he produces beautiful works in both mediums,” Fulton observes, adding that the “geometric and abstract compositions” Alleman brings to his farmland and mountain landscapes and iconic western images make his work “equally popular among contemporary and traditional art collectors.” Alleman, who’s based in Logan, UT, points to the oil MIDDAY SHADOW, a tightly cropped image of a barn sprung from his own imagination, as well as PALE SKULL, a watercolor of a bison skull rendered with eloquent spareness, as exercises in “trying to say more with less.”
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- Jill Soukup, Rest, oil, 20 x 28.
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- Joseph Alleman, Midday Shadow, oil, 22 x 22.
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- Josh Clare, Wasatch Glow, oil, 36 x 48.
The day after Alleman’s showcase concludes, the gallery presents two separate showcases for Jill Soukup and Josh Clare. Soukup’s association with Astoria dates back to her meeting with Fulton during her highly successful performance at the 2010 Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale in Denver. Then, as now, he finds her paintings of horses, bison, and other subjects, of which six to 10 are on display, “to be highly appealing to our audience.” BISON BULL, ROCK SERIES NO. 7 offers a fine example of the similarities she finds between that mighty animal and the massive rock formations she can see from her home near Red Rocks Park, outside of Denver. “The quality of a bison’s spring coat has that same kind of lumpy, shaggy quality,” she observes. Similarly, her CALGARY DRAFTS finds an almost monumental quality in its equine subjects.
Astoria has represented Clare since a month after his 2007 graduation from college with a degree in illustration. His work’s appeal was instantly evident to Fulton, who admires the artist’s “phenomenal mix of lighting, brushwork, and composition that beautifully captures the landscape in a painterly way.” Among Clare’s eight to 10 oils on view are SEPTEMBER SKY, a classic scene of the Wasatch Mountains near his home in Paradise, UT, and DITCH, a winter scene on Hyrum Canal, which winds through his 2-acre property. “I go out a lot to paint from life,” says Clare of his process. “But I’ve always felt the need to come back to my studio to try to build something that’s more a full realization of what’s out there.” Similarly, art lovers who visit Astoria Fine Art this month stand to realize more fully what fine contemporary realist art is out there to collect. —Norman Kolpas
contact information
307.733.4016
www.astoriafineart.com
This story was featured in the August 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art August 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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