Thursday night I enjoyed a lovely evening at Seattle’s downtown
Art Walk, and WOW--what an incredible month to see landscape paintings. Do set
aside a weekend day for your own visual pleasure if you can.
First stop: Kent Lovelace’s
show “Occitania” at Lisa Harris
Gallery. Kent, a printmaker in an earlier life, now uses his familiarity
with images on metal plates to paint glowing landscapes on copper. From across
the room they appear as faithful as photographs of the southern France he
adores; step up close and they dissolve into deliberate strokes of paint that
describe wizened olive trees and laden grapevines with irresistible flecks of
copper gleaming through. New this time around: Kent ventures into watery
pondscapes, with the dappled light hitting autumn trees, melting into dazzling
reflections. My favorite of the show: Birch Pond II. Minimalist palette of dense dark greens interrupted
flickering pale whites and blues conveys stillness, depth and quiet.
Next stop: Davidson Galleries
in Occidental Square to see Susan
Bennerstrom’s latest body of work: a move back to landscape, but this time
in oil paint rather than the pastels of her earlier works. There are still some
of her signature interiors—maybe with a window onto the landscape beyond—but the
destination of “Sojourn” is her ordered universe of botanic arches and stylized
trees choreographed to graphic and mysterious effect with the help of
Bennerstrom’s main character, light.
Save plenty of time for your final destination: A two-person
show at Linda
Hodges Gallery, where big, bold bravura contrasts with lyrical, poetic
jewels. Kurt
Solmssen returns with his iconic grand canvases of waterfront living on the
sunny south sound. Colorful, confident, out-of-the-ballpark stuff. But it was
the two fog pieces that took my breath away—50” x 70” painted out “in the thick
of it” so to speak, putting us studio painters to shame. Still, it was the
little gems at the other end of the gallery that grabbed my attention and held
it long enough to enjoy an illuminating conversation with Portland artist Sally Cleveland.
Her landscapes and cityscapes in oil on paper have a deft brushwork that
somehow strikes the usually elusive balance between descriptive and painterly—enough
detail to draw you in, but up close there is a loose confidence. Silvery gray
skies set off deep greens, occasional blazes of orange, delicate winter trees.
As I admired her paint handling, I couldn’t help but think of Norman Lundin,
who, it turns out, happens to collect her work (and no, she didn’t study with
him). Meeting Sally and being drawn into her work (and yes, you will want your
specs for these if you’re of a certain age) was the surprise highlight of an
evening that started with splendor and didn’t let up.
Next up: Must see the handiwork of Canadian Renato Mucillo
at Howard
Mandeville Gallery in Kirkland. Even though the show pretty much sold out
on opening night a couple of weeks ago (no surprise there), the marshy sunsets
painted with Flemish attention to detail are on display for our enjoyment
through April 14th.
