Cobalt Gallery, Tubac, AZ
February 9-13
Barbara Meikle, Meeting at the River, oil, 40 x 60.
Last year Cobalt Gallery expanded the footprint of its annual February show with the addition of a new gallery space. This year the Tubac, AZ, gallery extends its presence even further with a bigger artist lineup. Arizona Wild!, which runs February 9-13 in conjunction with the Tubac Festival of the Arts, spotlights the vibrant work of Cynthia Duff, Barbara Meikle, and Kate McCavitt. “I’m interested in showing these three painters together to accentuate their unique takes on the Sonoran Desert,” says gallery owner/director Mesia Hachadorian. “They’re each abstract in their own way by painting the desert through a lens of brilliant color and stylized shape. Their distinctive approaches are fascinating, and I want to share that during our biggest show of the year.”
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- Cynthia Duff, All in One, acrylic on birchwood, 43 x 39.
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- Barbara Meikle, Bojangles, bronze, 17 x 11 x 23.
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- Kate McCavitt, Yellow Moon, mixed media, 36 x 60.
Duff, who has exhibited with Meikle at the festival for the last seven years, continues to revel in the exploration of her unique “fracturing” technique—acrylic landscapes on birchwood surfaces bent for multidimensional impact. “My approach somewhat gives the appearance of a woven quilt,” the Colorado artist says. “I’m ‘weaving’ paintings, capturing what I see and feel as I journey on.” Her dozen or so new works, based on recent travels, focus on Arizona sunsets, Grand Canyon landscapes, and abstracted mesquite trees. Duff is on hand throughout the show at the gallery’s original Camino Otero location to meet collectors and demonstrate her technique.
Meikle’s current subjects are the saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert—“they have such personality,” she says—and the wildlife of Arizona. The artist, who has traveled to the Grand Canyon State to paint and exhibit over the past decade, is drawn to the javelinas, Gila monsters, and various hummingbird species not found in her home state of New Mexico. She has about 15 new paintings on tap, as well as limited-edition bronzes of steers and donkeys resplendent in bright, hot-color patinas. Meikle, a self-described “horse person,” also brings her philanthropic passion for horse and donkey rescue back to Tubac, where she’s slated to paint a rescued thoroughbred as part of Cobalt’s collaboration with the locally based Equine Voices Rescue & Sanctuary. Meikle is on site for the final three days of the show, with the location to be determined.
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- Cynthia Duff, Ocotillo Sunrise, acrylic on birchwood, 22 x 30.
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- Barbara Meikle, Cactus Delights, oil, 30 x 24.
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- Kate McCavitt, Still, This Softly Falling Gold, mixed media, 48 x 36.
Meanwhile, McCavitt sets up camp at Cobalt’s Tubac Road site throughout the show. “I’m inspired by the beauty in both ordinary things and numinous creations of nature,” she says, “and my feelings determine the path to express myself. I have two distinct painting styles, with cross-referenced processes running through both and an overlay of the influences of my years of training in Sumi-e, or Asian brush painting,” the California-based artist continues. “One style is more painterly, as I layer many washes of transparent fluid acrylics with varnish to build my color substrates. The other is based on acrylic pouring and is truly alla prima.” McCavitt plans to demonstrate her crowd-drawing pour technique featuring gold leaf. Other Cobalt artists at the festival are mixed-media and acrylic painter Dave Newman, wood artist Keoni, and sculptor Terry Slonaker. —Beth Williams
contact information
520.398.1200
www.cobaltfinearts.com
This story appeared in the February/March 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.