Show Preview | Jove Wang & Mark Laguë

Santa Barbara, CA
Waterhouse Gallery, July 23-August 19

Jove Wang, Morning Venice, oil, 24 x 30.

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

Artists Jove Wang and Mark Laguë capture powerful impressions of the subjects they paint. Rich in color and value contrasts, their oil paintings leave imprints on the mind long after viewing them. This month, the two accomplished painters bring new works to Waterhouse Gallery, inviting visitors into the landscapes and cityscapes of their travels. “Both artists are bold, expressive, and compelling painters, but their styles are dramatically different,” says gallery owner Diane Waterhouse. “Jove loves the landscape and often paints outdoors. His brush strokes are rich and gestural, bringing vivid drama. Mark loves the hustle and bustle of metropolitan cities, narrating as an observer watching the world go by.”

Influenced by a strong foundation in calligraphy, drawing, sculpture, and wood carving, Wang describes his style as a marriage of classical and modern art concepts. The indigenous cultures of his native China capture his heart, but he doesn’t limit himself to one type of subject matter. He views his diverse oeuvre of portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and seascapes as a consortium of his interests and skills as an artist. “All subjects are interrelated,” says Wang, adding, “I paint everywhere, in all corners of the world.”

Wang’s recent work features pensive seascapes of the West Coast near his home in Alhambra, CA, including harbor scenes in Santa Barbara, but he also shares poignant impressionistic landscapes and seascapes based on recent trips to the East Coast and Europe, many painted en plein air. Across his canvases, viewers can find Wang’s bravura brushwork, a vital method of expression for the artist that mirrors the kinesthetic energy of Chinese calligraphy. “My brush strokes show my ideas of emotion,” he says. “They are a directional guide for form and structure, passage of movement, even defining edges.”

Mark Laguë, New York Green Rain, oil, 24 x 24.

Alongside Wang’s more pastoral paintings hang dramatic urban landscapes of Paris, London, New York City, and San Francisco by Canadian artist Mark Laguë. “The complexity of cities fascinates me,” he says. “Even in school I had these impulses to explore city architecture and how cars, people, and light interact with and relate to it.”

In works like NEW YORK GREEN RAIN, Laguë continues to probe the intricacies of light, particularly man-made light. He also has been working toward expressing the geometry of architecture more organically. To avoid getting too detailed and linear, Laguë now uses palette knives more frequently, and he limits his use of small brushes. “There are no lines in nature,” he says, quoting 19th-century French painter Édouard Manet. “I never want my work to look like there’s a line around it. I like everything to integrate.” Laguë notes that, if viewers look closely, they can observe pure abstraction in the value contrasts that shape and link the buildings, streets, cars, and headlights. “That’s the goal and that’s the design. It all comes back to the notion of pulling back on it and thinking, ‘Wow. That looks real.’”

The show opens with an artists’ reception on Saturday, July 23, at 5 p.m., and runs through August 19. —Kim Agricola

contact information
805.962.8885
www.waterhousegallery.com