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Sunday, May 11, 2008
Landscapes Let You Enjoy the View
By Wesley Pulkka
For the Journal
The 14-artist “Los Sandias” landscape painting show at Framing Concepts Gallery serves as a pleasant reminder that despite our busy schedules, dizzying traffic and awful prices at the gas pump, we live next to one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world.
The frenetic world of contemporary art is filling up with cyberspace-contained virtual reality architecture, sculpture, environments and installations that attempt to express life in post-modern terms. I enjoy turning off the violence-rules, game-ridden computer to cleanse my palette with traditional skills demanding art.
Landscape painting was given birth in the United States by the Hudson River School, a group of American painters who were awed by this country's romantically dramatic landscape. The group received wide critical acclaim here and in Europe during the 1820s.
Though the first landscape murals were painted in ancient Pompeii, the Hudson River artists raised the genre to a new level that wasn't rivaled until the Barbizon painters feted the landscape of France in the mid-19th century.
Since that time landscape artists have proliferated like proverbial rabbits. The Framing Concepts show represents both mature and developing artists who have taken on landscape painting's formidable challenge of atmospheric perspective, scale, draftsmanship and color.
Former pastel artist Thais Haines switched to oils several years ago and has grown ever since. Her “Evening Shadows” is a strong statement that reads well and reveals the artist's confidence in her new medium.
One of my favorites in the show is Melissa Moloney's “Our Sandia Mountains,” a nicely painted oil that rewards close inspection with lively brushwork while appearing almost photographic at a distance. Moloney is an emerging artist who is beginning to hit her stride.
The late Siegfried Hahn was heavily influenced by English watercolor painting and European art in general. He is represented by two nice works titled “La Luz Trail: Pinon Picking Picnickers” and “Sandias, The Pinnacle.” Hahn's La Luz oil painting represents the artist at his best, with high-density details, a mastery of form, ability to render vast expanses and a feeling for narrative.
There are several excellent pastels in the show by Lee McVey and Terry Dunn. McVey's “Sandias and Juniper” and “Sandias Trail through the Junipers” are small pastels that ride the edge between quick plein-air sketches and more labored studio paintings. Both paintings are convincing enough to place the viewer on the mountainside.
Dunn offers an ambitious and well-rendered large pastel mural titled “Sandia Gold” that suffers from too much glare from its protective glass. The use of low-sheen museum glass would solve the problem.
David Schwindt is showing a small oil sketch titled “Clouds Over the Sandias” and a mid-size oil titled “Cottonwood on the Rio Grande.” Though I'm a fan of Schwindt's work, neither of these paintings are on par with his stunning “Sandia Showers” mural that sold before the show opened and is unfortunately no longer on display.
Overall this is a solid show that proves that virtual reality can be found off line. If you love landscape painting you'll enjoy this collection.
WHEN: Through May 31. Hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Call 294-3246.
WHERE: Framing Concepts Gallery, 5809-B Juan Tabo NE
HOW MUCH: Free
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