Show Preview | Joel Ostlind

Big Horn, WY
The Brinton Museum, June 15-August 4

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

LINEWORK TO Linen, the lyrical title of The Brinton Museum’s exhibition of works by Joel Ostlind, perfectly sums up the etchings and paintings that are on display beginning this month—but it also evokes the distinctive, deft style for which the artist has come to be widely respected. Ostlind, who lives with his wife Wendy “in the country about two miles from the Big Horn post office,” attends the show’s opening reception on Sunday, June 16, from 3 to 5 p.m., which is open to the public. While the sheer volume of works on display—almost 60 prints and paintings—may suggest that the show is a retrospective, Ostlind points out that’s not quite the case. Sure, some of the etchings may date back as early as 2004. But for the most part, he says, “I want to bring in fresher things.”

Indeed, “fresh” is an apt description for Ostlind’s authentically observed take on western life and landscape. “He’s Wyoming’s version of Charlie Russell,” says museum director and chief curator Kenneth L. Schuster, referring to the famed Montana-based cow-boy artist of a century ago. Museumgoers can expect to see works with the simple yet expressive lines that have won Ostlind so many devoted followers since he left cowboying to become a full-time artist around 1990. “What I think makes him an artist of note,” Schuster adds, “is his ability to translate western tradition into a more modern and timely setting, sometimes putting his own humble, whimsical spin on it.”

A case in point is A SHORE OF THE SAGEBRUSH SEA, an etching embellished with watercolor that depicts six head of cattle resting in the shade of a billboard, which in turn boasts a shoreline scene where two sunbathers recline beneath palm trees. For a more traditional take on the West, consider Ostlind’s idyllic landscape painting MORNING COMES OVER THE RIDGE, where sharp shadows cast by oblique morning sunlight dramatize a vast view of mountains. Yet another fresh aspect to this work, the artist notes, is the fact that he painted it in acrylics rather than the oils he’d long used. “I started having trouble with the volatiles in oil paints. Acrylics were liberating,” he chuckles, “because now I can work on large paintings again without asphyxiating myself.”

Liberating in a different way is the etching process for which Ostlind has long been admired. “There’s a little magic in etching,” he says, explaining why he looks forward to revealing the simplicity of those tricks during an etching demonstration he’ll give at the mu-seum on Thursday, July 25, at 7 p.m. That appearance ties into another key element of the show: the publication of a limited-edition book of 50 Ostlind prints, celebrating the art of etching and letterpress, produced by Laramie-based master printmaker Jim Jereb in collaboration with the artist.

It all adds up to an event that, for the artist, feels like a special milestone, especially considering that he turns 65 just a few days before the opening. “I just feel that there’s a wonder to it all,” he humbly concludes. —Norman Kolpas

contact information
307.672.3173
www.thebrintonmuseum.org

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

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