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Tubac, AZ
Cobalt Fine Arts Gallery, February 5-9

Cynthia Duff, Anew Again, acrylic, 38 x 48.

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.

THOSE WHO aren’t well-acquainted with desert ecosystems might imagine them to be hot, harsh, and arid. And while that picture does describe some aspects of desert life, it’s certainly not the full picture. Leave it to artists Barbara Meikle and Cynthia Duff to show us just how alive, magical, and inviting the desert can be. Lately, each artist has been exploring the desert lands of Arizona in her work—Meikle through her colorful oil paintings of animals, and Duff through her large, luminous landscapes rendered in acrylic on birchwood. Cobalt Fine Arts Gallery in Tubac, AZ, showcases the artists’ creations during the Tubac Festival of the Arts, February 5-9. Both Duff and Meikle are in attendance.

: Barbara Meikle, When the Ocotillos Bloom, oil, 20 x 20.

: Barbara Meikle, Esperanza, oil, 36 x 12.

: Barbara Meikle, Night Owl Romance, oil, 30 x 24.

Known for her vivid portrayals of donkeys, horses, and birds, Meikle brings a few of her trademark pieces to the show. But the self-described colorist also fervently captures flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert around Tubac. In one brightly hued piece, she portrays the piglike javelina blissfully at home amongst a purple sea of prickly pears, and in a moonlit nocturne, she depicts a pair of nuzzling owls roosting upon blooming saguaro. Meikle, who hails from northern New Mexico, has traveled to the Copper State over the past several years to participate in shows at Cobalt and in events like Cowgirl Up! and the Phippen Museum’s Hold Your Horses. “Because of my involvement with these shows in Arizona, I’ve grown to love the landscape, the animals, and the people,” she says. “There is something very special about them.”

Also an avid sculptor, Meikle supplements her collection of oils with four new tabletop bronze sculptures, including a depiction of her rescue horse, Felina. And in her signature fashion, she’ll be painting outside the gallery on Friday, February 7, and Saturday, February 8, from a live model provided by Equine Voices, a local sanctuary for horses and burros. Works are sold off the easel, and proceeds from sales are donated to the sanctuary.

: Cynthia Duff, Common Bond, acrylic, 30 x 30.

: Cynthia Duff, Desert Peace, acrylic, 38 x 48.

: Cynthia Duff, Tapeats Grandeur, acrylic.

Based in Grand Junction, CO, Duff describes her landscape works as “journey paintings” that document her travels around the country. Like Meikle, her journeys to Tubac and other desert regions of Arizona over the past several years have been especially inspirational. Recently, Duff and her husband took a 14-day rafting trip in Grand Canyon National Park. During their river adventure, “I tried to do a painting a day,” says the artist, whose plein-air studies inspired a number of large studio works in the show, incuding ANEW AGAIN, a scene imbued with the radiance of dawn.

Because the couple’s entire rafting trip unfolded at the bottom of the deep canyon, notes Duff, it was impossible to view sunrises and sunsets. So, in her depictions of the canyon, the artist captured the light effects she observed on the surrounding rocks as the sun was setting or rising; the alpenglow of a sunset, for example, would cast a rosy-red glimmer on the canyon walls. “I love the way the light comes down and refracts on the land,” says Duff. “So, my creative process reflects that: I fracture the landscape. It allows me, as a designer, to guide your eye through the painting to feel the message of it, and even feel a couple of different times of day—or even a breeze—in the painting.” —Kim Agricola

contact information
520.398.1200
www.cobaltfinearts.com