Joshua Demain, Play Place (detail), oil on copper, 12 x 18 inches
My artwork navigates scenes I encounter from everyday life in Alaska. Ranging from magnificent sunset cityscapes to glorious natural landscapes, these paintings reflect the inherent grandeur of local Alaskan scenery. My goal is to convey the message that beauty is everywhere, and often where we least expect it.
Scott McDonald, Love charm (ex-voto) 1, 2024, mixed media on synthetic paper, 11 x 14 inches
What I do best is keep working and letting things happen. I called this show Guided by Voices because that’s sort of how the process works. I work intuitively and I try not to second guess my intuition. To me, being an artist means working in private and letting things happen–finding surprises, experimenting, showing up, not mediating, not censoring. It also means being vulnerable and presenting what happened.
scottmcdonaldart.com
I paint outdoors from life almost every day, and doing so I have witnessed the seasons changing, from the marsh grass growing back in the spring, to the cattails shedding their feathery seeds in the winter, to the bend of a thick branch under the snow load. These paintings reflect the beautiful changes I have witnessed around me, each piece painted on site. However, while this show is outwardly called “Season of Change," inwardly I also had a season of change.
I turned 50 in 2022, entering the autumn of my life. Suddenly while painting from a spot on a marsh, I felt wholly connected to autumn and begrudged winter. And what a long winter we had, with relentless snow and dark days. The decaying leaves, the broken branches, the migrating birds, all of them suddenly speaking to me in a different way than I had ever heard before. Winter is on the horizon.
Part One: Stand Still
This series of 15 landscapes was painted from the same vantage point over a period of 13 months. The paintings aren't meant to be maps of the landscape but rather an expression of the constant evolution of change around us. While we go about our daily lives, so do the birds, the trees, and even the water. If we ever stood still, this might be what we would observe.
Part Two: Autumn
These paintings of Potters Marsh in autumn comfort me as I enter the autumn of my own life.
Part Three: In Everything
Everything has a season of change. And for many living things, there is a final season.
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Darwin Estacio Martinez was born in 1982, in Manzanillo, Cuba; he is a graduate from the Professional Academy of Fine Arts "El Alba" in Holguin city, and also is a graduate from the Higher Institute of Arts in Havana. He is professor at the National Fine Arts Academy (San Alejandro), and has had an extensive artistic career having participated exhibitions across Cuba and other countries around the world. Images of his works have been included in several publications and many of his artworks belong to private collections in and outside of the Island.
My paintings and videos are intended to embody general ideas through fragments and details that allude to a chain of actions that are maintained only in a speculative and interpretive level. For me, nothing happens except what an observer is able to infer. The use of the human figure removed from any individual reference helps me focus on personality archetypes. I use each figure as a kind human being type. I want to achieve in the medium of cinema the effect I achieve in my painting and paradoxically to create within my paintings that which I have captured in film.
John Coyne, September, 2022, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches
The numinous happens all around us, from the ever changing cloud formations to the play of light on treetops. Anywhere from the seemingly mundane streets in my neighborhood or the shoreline of Point Woronzof, from Anchorage parking lots at sunset to the landscapes of Central America there is transcendence. As an artist I keep my eye open for latent beauty wherever it may occur.
