Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
May 27-June 12
Angus, Reaction in Color With Lemons, acrylic, 30 x 30.
A profusion of vibrant color is on display this May at Ventana Fine Art in Santa Fe, where two accomplished artists exhibit a total of 45 paintings in a show titled Insight—Outside and Inside: New Paintings by Frank Balaam and Angus. The duo have had two-person exhibitions at Ventana in the past, as their shared passion for color creates a joyful visual experience for viewers. Balaam and Angus each created works in small, medium, and large sizes for the show, and both attend the opening reception on Friday, May 27, from 4 to 6 p.m.
As someone who has trekked and wandered the landscape extensively throughout his 60-year career, British-born and Arizona-based Balaam puts a lifetime of experience and observation into each thoughtful brush stroke. His slow, methodical technique, using heavy impasto in oil, results in lush forest scenes that sing with colorful pizazz. “It’s like jazz,” the artist says of achieving balance among competing hues. “Each color has to sing like a soloist while harmonizing with opposing colors. Some paintings may sing a little louder than others, but I won’t let a painting leave my studio until it has its own song.”
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- Frank Balaam, Awakening Night, oil, 36 x 36.
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- Angus, Disintegrating Color With Papaya & Oranges, acrylic, 24 x 36.
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- Frank Balaam, Blue Leaves of Evening, oil, 30 x 60.
Balaam spent the past year creating 21 new treescapes—including a twilight series—for this show, all of which are tied to the theme of hope and result from the artist’s reflective immersions in nature. “I will sit in the forest for days, observing, pondering, sketching in watercolor, taking pictures,” the artist says. “Then I return to the studio and build the composition from these sources.” Purchasing a Balaam painting benefits the planet as well, as the artist donates a portion of his sales to conservation groups.
Organizing a cacophony of intense colors with equal patience and skill is Angus, who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area. He exhibits 25 new still lifes in this show, all created over the past six months. Although his paintings feel spontaneous, with explosions of expressionistic energy, the Scottish artist puts a tremendous amount of thought and care into each piece. “I spend days on the early phases of a painting,” he says, “designing and planning through pastel color sketches or scribbling on a screen in ProCreate. It’s this meticulous process of figuring out how to emphasize and enhance colors before color is even in the picture.” Spending his early career in film, TV, and gaming, where storyboards and mood panels were instrumental parts of the process, he has adapted these preliminary steps for his fine-art process.
Angus’s distinctive outlining technique, an approach inspired by the post-Impressionists, is on view in this collection of impactful paintings, along with a new approach he is exploring for the first time: “colors broken free from the confines of their enclosures,” as he describes it, “like an explosion of confetti, color splintering across the canvas. I usually have a new twist I add to my work every year, a way of challenging myself and continuing to evolve the endless exciting possibilities inherent in still-life painting.” —Allison Malafronte
contact information
505.983.8815
www.ventanafineart.com
This story appeared in the April/May 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.