Show Preview | Frazier & Dean - Southwest Art Magazine

Jackson, WY
Legacy Gallery, September 9-25

Luke Frazier, Hot Coffee and a Warm Fire, oil, 24 x 36.

This story was featured in the September 2016 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2016 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

Art is in its prime in September at Legacy Gallery in Jackson, WY, where western artists Luke Frazier and Glenn Dean each present solo shows this month. Frazier’s show opens on Friday, September 9, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m., and runs through September 18. Dean’s show opens on Friday, September 16, with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. and continues through September 25.

Each artist offers at least a half dozen new works. Frazier’s pieces capture fly-fishing, bird hunting, and camping scenes that set him apart from other wildlife artists. The Utah-based painter grew up immersed in these activities, and they remain passions for him. Painting such scenes brings out nostalgia in the artist. “In a nutshell, I’m going back to my roots,” he says. It’s fitting, then, that he’s chosen a creative style that could have earned his paintings the covers of Outdoor Life and Field & Stream from the 1920s or ’30s. “Luke has a look that’s a throwback to the illustrator period. He’s put more of an emphasis on that,” says gallery owner Brad Richardson. Frazier echoes this sentiment by noting that he’s pressed the illustrator look more in the paintings for this show than in his previous work.

In HOT COFFEE AND A WARM FIRE, a man waits for the early morning chill to lift, sipping his coffee next to a birch-bark canoe. In DEFIANCE, a more traditional wildlife piece, Frazier employs a yellow-pink sky reminiscent of vintage illustrations. “I’m trying to keep that era—where artists told a story—alive in my own work. For me, those illustrators have a place in American history,” the artist says.

Renowned artists from the past—in his case, Edgar Payne and Maynard Dixon—also inspire Dean’s work. Although he began primarily in landscapes, his subject matter is advancing. “His evolution has happened over the past five years. He’s enjoyed a tremendous amount of success with adding figures. He’s captured a look that’s unique and has developed his own voice,” says Richardson.

For this show, Dean draws references from past trips across the Southwest, rendering the landscapes in a fairly truthful palette. He then adds a lone figure to the scene. “It resonates with me on a personal level. Not that I’m a cowboy. But that’s what it feels like when you’re out there painting,” he says. “It’s an appropriate vehicle to explain the isolation and the vastness. If you have too many figures in a composition, it feels like you have to tell a story. With a lone figure, it keeps it open to interpretation.” —Ashley M. Biggers

contact information
307.733.2353
www.legacygallery.com