Bryce Cameron Liston | Bodies in Motion

Figurative painter Bryce Cameron Liston artfully blends classical and contemporary

By Norman Kolpas

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

HER BLONDE HAIR aglow in the warm sun, a young girl strolls thoughtfully through a field full of flowers. The already-picked blossoms in her basket, along with those all around her, vibrantly complement the bright floral pattern on her red-and-orange dress, conjuring an appealing air of serenity.

This scene depicted by painter Bryce Cameron Liston (and featuring Campbell, the youngest of his three daughters) in the painting entitled A CHILD’S SUMMER possesses a classic, almost timeless feel, from the faithfully rendered expression on the child’s face to the harmonies of color and form all around her. Yet, on closer examination, the 16-by-20-inch canvas reveals a decidedly modern approach as well. The top quarter of the background, for example, virtually fades to black, forgoing all detail in order to direct the viewer’s focus to the foreground subject. In the middle ground, meanwhile, what at first gave the impression of being a realistically depicted grassy field is, in fact, broad abstract areas of green, shot through with strokes of mauve and streaks of red and other subtle color touches.

So, the question arises: Is Liston a traditionalist or a modernist? “I’m in a transition, moving in more of a contemporary direction that blends realism with the abstract,” the artist explains. “You could say it’s a romantic traditional approach, but heading more in a contemporary direction.” Yet, casting aside for a moment such art-world labels, A CHILD’S SUMMER is also a vivid example of masterly portraiture.

DURING HIS childhood in the town of Pleasant Grove, UT, amidst the farmland about an hour north of Salt Lake City, being immersed in the world of art was a matter-of-fact constant for Liston. As a 5-year-old with two much older siblings, he would tag along with his mother as she pursued her own passion for painting by attending local plein-air classes and working from live models. Not that young Bryce felt inclined, at the time, to pick up a brush or pencil himself. “I would get so bored,” he recalls, “that she learned to stop at the store on the way to class and buy me model kits of military planes or tanks or ships to put together on the hood of our car while she painted.”

His home reflected his mom’s interests as well. In her studio and all around the house were books on the works of great figurative artists, from N.C. Wyeth to Richard Schmid. “And my mother always kept her palette in the freezer, wrapped in Saran Wrap, to keep the oil paints from drying out and oxidizing,” he laughs, recalling how she also had to allow time for the colors to thaw before each painting session.

Thanks to such constant exposure to art, and to his own innate abilities, young Bryce began to manifest glimmerings of talent himself. “Other kids would ask me to draw a ship or a plane, and they thought my drawing was fantastic,” he says. His works eventually won a few school prizes, and more and more he hung out with the arts crowd. “It was the only thing that really interested me,” he adds.

One decisive moment came toward the end of his time at Pleasant Grove Junior High, when he and his mom met with a guidance counselor for an obligatory career-planning session. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” he remembers the counselor asking. “I said, ‘An artist.’ She looked a little perplexed and said, ‘That’s not an acceptable answer. Choose something else.’” So, trying to quickly come up with a response that would extricate him from the awkward situation, he finally said to her, “How about architecture?” She found that notion acceptable and wrote it down in his transcript. “So I took a lot of drafting classes at Pleasant Grove High,” Liston recalls. “I liked sitting down with a pencil and piece of paper and drawing something.”

When he graduated in 1983, however, old-fashioned draftsmanship had already begun to be replaced by computer-aided design. “That scared the hell out of me,” he admits, “so I made a snap decision that I didn’t want to work on a computer,” resolving instead to be an artist. He eventually enrolled in the art department at the University of Utah, but that turned out not to fulfill his needs. Apart from one class that he loved on figure structure, he felt that the program was “more into teaching you to talk about art and about doing something that’s never been done before” than it was about the practical, realist studio experience he craved. So he left after a year and a half.

Meanwhile, he’d begun working in a commercial bronze-casting foundry to help pay his bills. Eventually, that led him to work at the foundry of world-class historical sculptor Edward J. Fraughton, whose works are exhibited in museums and as public monuments nationwide. During Liston’s 15 years there, Fraughton personally trained him “to reproduce all the details of what he had put into his sculptures,” down to “all the joints and the bones and the tendons of a horse’s anatomy. It was a very, very slow way to learn, but that was the core of the art training I’ve had.” He adds with a laugh, “You could say I learned to paint from a sculptor.”

At the same time, though, Liston was also training himself outside of his paid job. “I was self-directed, self-taught,” he says. “I studied from books and by going to weekly group drawing sessions with live models all around the Salt Lake Valley.” He was also sculpting, and when he finally left the job with Fraughton in 2000, he first supported himself and his young family—Liston and his wife, Susan, have now been married for 27 years—through his own commissioned sculptures.

Gradually, however, he moved to painting full time, submitting his works to juried shows and competitions. He reckons his first real sign of success came in 2005, when he took third place in an Oil Painters of America exhibition in Missoula, MT. That and other milestones gradually led galleries across the nation to contact him and offer representation.

Through it all, he focused primarily on the challenge of painting the human form. “Trying to capture a figure and a face, and to work with anatomy and gesture, really seems to be the only thing that caught my interest,” he says. And while he does paint men and boys from time to time, girls and women have always been his main subjects. “There is just something divine about the female form. I just can’t paint it enough. I know a lot of women artists who say the same thing. With a female subject, there are a thousand different poses that look wonderful.”

Liston’s works have continued to win major accolades, including a Gold Medal at last year’s Western Regional Exhibition of the OPA, of which he is now a Signature Member. Nevertheless, he has been reconsidering of late the direction he had taken in his approach to painting. “It felt like I had been a ‘commercial’ artist, [painting] to earn my living,” he says. So, especially since he turned 50 four years ago, he has been giving more and more thought to “what I have inside of me, what I want to say about myself, and where I could take my art.”

Such thoughts, in turn, have led him to his current style of work, combining abstract elements with his classical realistic representation of the figure. “It’s experimentation,” he says, “and it’s exciting. I’m pushing the colors more, adding a little mystery, making the viewer question more what’s going on.”

A great example is NOTES IN BURGUNDY, in which the pale flesh tones of a woman’s bare back and shoulders are surrounded by the red silk robe she has just shrugged off, a bright-pink dress hanging nearby, and bold background brush strokes of the title color. Liston notes, “I’m trying to paint a little less literally. I’m focusing on the overall harmony of the cool light and the deep reds. I’m journeying here into that direction of abstraction.” The painting sold almost immediately when it went on display in a gallery.

Abstract elements aside, Liston nonetheless still begins his works like he always has, taking reference photos with a live model. He makes charcoal or pencil sketches to determine his composition and then transfers the image he chooses to his canvas. Finally, he applies his oil paints, working from background to foreground and from dark to light colors.

Despite the success such works have had, the recent transitions have also been daunting. “It’s a scary little journey that I’m on,” he admits. He won’t venture into full abstraction, however. “I know I need a certain amount of realism to get me interested in the painting. So, how do I mix an abstract construction in with a figure? I don’t have the answer for that yet.”

But he’ll keep looking. At the moment, he’s considering multifigure works, which suggest the possibility of a “more abstract puzzle of light and dark shapes and strange colors. It’s something I can think about, an open-ended question.” And, judging by the progression of his most recent works, the answers at which Liston arrives will no doubt be compellingly beautiful.

representation
Beck Fine Art Gallery, Wilmington, NC; Sage Creek Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; RS Hanna Gallery, Fredericksburg, TX; Palm Avenue Fine Art, Sarasota, FL; The Marshall Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ;
www.listonart.com.

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

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