Show Preview | Mark Eberhard

Jackson, WY
Astoria Fine Art, September 6-14

Mark Eberhard, The Town Crier, oil, 40 x 40.

This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

SPARE, ELEGANT, and cleverly designed, Ohio artist Mark Eberhard’s paintings of birds and other wildlife have been exceptionally popular at Astoria Fine Art ever since he joined the Jackson, WY, gallery’s stable 10 years ago. Over a handful of years, in fact, “Mark has moved into the position of being the best-selling painter in the gallery,” remarks managing partner Greg Fulton. It seemed fitting, concludes Fulton, to begin hosting an annual solo exhibition for Astoria’s marquee artist during one of the town’s most widely attended events, the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival. Eberhard’s third annual Fall Arts Festival showcase opens at the gallery on Friday, September 6, just a few days after the festival kicks off. An artist’s reception is held on Friday, September 13, from 1 to 4 p.m., and many of Eberhard’s paintings are sold by draw the next day at noon.

Ranging in size from a modest 10-by-10-inch painting on Masonite board to large-scale canvases measuring up to nearly 5 feet square, a majority of Eberhard’s 11 new, nature-inspired oil paintings depict the avian creatures he has become so well known for portraying with accuracy, grace, wit, and realism. The artist—whose works can be found in prominent collections that include the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum and the National Museum of Wildlife Art—paints from his home studio in a quiet Cincinnati suburb, where his workspace is just a stone’s throw from a scenic, tree-lined recreational trail that runs along the Little Miami River. Not surprisingly, from the large glass doors in his studio, Eberhard enjoys limitless birdwatching opportunities. Indeed, with the exception of the Steller’s jay, most of the birds featured in his new collection are local to his native Ohio Valley homeland; among the mix are American kestrels, nuthatches, and kingfishers, to name a few. And in Eberhard’s signature fashion, many of his winged subjects contentedly perch upon tree branches dotted with meticulously rendered leaves, blooms, or berries.

Back in the mid-1970s, as a graduate student in fine art at Yale University, the artist pursued graphic-design studies motivated, in part, by his interest in Swiss Design, a mid-20th-century movement that championed principles like simplicity, clean lines, and asymmetrical balance. Those qualities are evident in his paintings today; touches of whimsy are not uncommon, either, in a composition by Eberhard, who—when describing the imaginative scenarios he portrays—says, “Most everything is made up.”

A few paintings contain subtle surprises that the artist playfully offers up to viewers. In LARGE AND SMALL, for example, it’s impossible to miss the pileated woodpeckers in the upper right corner, where a trio of nestlings peeps out from within a tree trunk while their mother clings to the outer bark, perhaps preparing to feed her young. But as the eye travels left across the canvas to a thin pine tree jutting up from the bottom corner, a tiny downy woodpecker comes into view. This little bird—the smallest woodpecker in North America—seems to glance timidly toward his heftier counterpart above.

Eberhard also brings a few works to the show that depict wildlife of the four-legged kind, including a bear, an elk, and a moose, in a nod to the surrounding Yellowstone ecosystem. But birds have long been and will undoubtedly remain his greatest muse. As the artist concedes with a chuckle, “I much prefer feathers over furs.” —Kim Agricola

contact information
307.733.4016
www.astoriafineart.com

This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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