Show Preview | Brad Price - Southwest Art Magazine

Santa Fe, NM
Meyer Gallery, November 1-7

Brad Price, Chama Wilderness, oil, 30 x 40.

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

OKLAHOMA ARTIST Brad Price returns to Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, this month for his latest solo show, Echoes of Creation. Featuring 30 all-new oil paintings inspired by his most recent travels throughout New Mexico, Price’s exhibition takes viewers on a visually stirring tour of the Chama River Canyon Wilderness and beyond, with vivid portrayals of adobes, cottonwoods, chamisa, and hillside villages—“all my favorites,” promises Price, who attends an opening reception at the gallery on Friday, November 1, from 5 to 7 p.m.

: Brad Price, Ranchos de Taos Church, oil, 36 x 48.

: Brad Price, Rio Grande Reflections, oil, 16 x 20.

: Brad Price, Taos Chamisa, oil, 20 x 16.

Visitors to the show can find, throughout all his pieces, Price’s characteristically bold, individual strokes of color that he never blends on his canvases. “I let the viewer’s eye blend the strokes together,” says the self-described expressionistic, post-Impressionist painter. “But some pieces are slightly more subtle in the way those colors come together,” he adds, “and others are much bolder with the use of dark strokes, especially in the foreground. They’re more graphic and slightly more abstract.”

Style aside, Price is taking some fresh approaches with his landscapes. One painting set in the wilderness of Cerrillos, NM, features a small cowboy figure on horseback, which the artist added for scale. This past year he has been studying the works of Ernest L. Blumenschein, E. Martin Hennings, and other early Taos artists, which may also have something to do with his figurative painting, surmises Price. “Riders show up in their work,” he says, smiling. “I think I just had to channel one of them in my paintings.”

: Brad Price, Van Gogh Cowboy, oil, 16 x 20.

: Brad Price, Acoma Floral, oil, 40 x 30.

: Brad Price, Bode’s Hill, oil, 11 x 14.

He has been channeling another artist, too: The vibrant, painterly swirls of Vincent van Gogh can be seen in works like VAN GOGH COWBOY, a rare portrait by Price. He also evokes the spirit of the Dutch post-Impressionist in numerous landscapes and a few large still lifes featuring sunflowers and irises. “Van Gogh had directional brush strokes that swirled and moved throughout his work,” muses Price. “What I’m finding is that the direction of my own brush strokes follows the natural growth patterns [and movement] of my subjects—the way trees grow, the way the wind blows. So in a way, nature leads the way.” The title of Price’s show poetically reinforces this aspect of his work. “They are echoes,” he says of his paintings. “Echoes of my experiences in nature that spring from my heart to the canvas.” —Kim Agricola

contact information
800.779.7387
www.meyergalleries.com