Show Preview | Jeremy Lipking - Southwest Art Magazine

Legacy Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
March 12-21

Jeremy Lipking, A Mother’s Blessing, oil, 30 x 40.

When Jeremy Lipking greets guests at Legacy Gallery this month—whether in person or online—it marks a homecoming of sorts. He began showing his work at the gallery in group exhibitions some two decades ago after launching his career as a professional painter. Now he’s back at Legacy with a solo show, titled Silence & Sagebrush, featuring some 20 oil-on-linen paintings. The show’s opening reception is planned for Saturday, March 13, from 5 to 7 p.m.; a demonstration and slideshow are scheduled that afternoon.

Lipking originally intended to showcase works inspired by a trip last spring to Arizona and Utah, which would have provided dramatic southwestern backgrounds for his iconic, nostalgic images of women and children. Then along came the pandemic, and instead he hunkered down with his wife Danielle and their five youngest children, ages 4 to 17 years (their oldest, now 26, has already flown the coop). Fortunately, those circumstances provided him with models who were readily available in between their Zoom classes. He also took advantage of the unspoiled landscapes surrounding their home on over 5 oak-studded acres in the Santa Monica Mountains outside Los Angeles—along with a cabin on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas, where they spent some time last summer.

: Jeremy Lipking, Sierra’s Path, oil, 40 x 24.

: Jeremy Lipking, Becoming, oil, 20 x 16.

: Jeremy Lipking, Sharing Secrets, oil, 36 x 24.

Many of the completed images evoke a warm sense of intimacy born of the family’s closeness. Consider, for example, A MOTHER’S BLESSING, which portrays Danielle and their youngest children, fraternal twins Juniper and Zion, gazing eastward across a sagebrush-dotted plain in the light of a waning day. Like many of his scenes, this one engages the imagination, inviting speculation over what the three figures might be watching or who may just have left them. “I may think of some little backstory,” the artist notes, “but I like to leave most of my paintings open to interpretation.”

That same narrative invitation shines through in the beautifully composed and thoughtfully observed SIERRA’S PATH, in which Lipking’s 7-year-old daughter retraces her footprints in snow fallen alongside their mountain retreat. Ordinarily, says the artist, “I don’t revisit subject matter.” But a past painting of the same setting, in which the girl is depicted with her back to the viewer, intrigued him sufficiently to, in effect, continue the story.

: Jeremy Lipking, Protector, oil, 24 x 18.

: Jeremy Lipking, Of Earth and Sky, oil, 20 x 16.

Other works need nothing more than a perfect gesture to spark keen interest. THE HOPE OF A CHILD shows Juniper once more, this time reaching out her left hand. Originally, Lipking had begun this painting as a sketch for a larger work in which he’d also planned to include his niece, showing the two girls standing near some grazing sheep at the base of a hill close to their home. But the study possessed such sweet innocence that “adding more would distract from its subtlety,” he realized. Instead, he created a background of abstract brushwork in shades of green with touches of gold that brings the solo figure into perfectly lifelike relief.

Such results stand as a testament to how inspiration can arise from seclusion—even when an artist and his family spend a year sheltering at home together. —Norman Kolpas