Large canvases and over-sized papers start the creative process for our newest Gallery Walk exhibit. The Chait Galleries Downtown features work by Priscilla Steele, owner of the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion, Iowa, as well as our very own and well-known oil painter, Nancy Lindsay.
Though these two artists’ work differ in approach, they both share the common curiosity involved in the creation of larger scale work- which requires the mind to shift the gears of thought; for an image amplified is more readily examined and the consistency of scale is a talent to be honed. Our artists are not native to Iowa, but they have found an enrichment of inventiveness that the Midwest mysteriously exudes, and used it to their own advantage.
Juggling life’s gifts and obstacles, in the studio Priscilla gravitates toward human and botanical forms, and in this event, her choice of scale is larger-than-life. She has earned discovery though her experiments with mark making which refers to techniques used to create different lines, patterns, and textures in an artwork. Priscilla’s mark making is sophisticated and calculated – a calculated spontaneity if you will, and if such a thing does not exist, then she has such created it. Her botanical renderings bring the viewer in to really see “the forest for the trees”, to see the individual complexity of forms ingeniously created in life. From the hard marks, gesture, movement and form: it is larger than even perceived.
Nancy Lindsay is confronted with similar aspects of art and life, though her inspiration derived initially from her grandfather’s drawings and woodcarvings, and the endless plains of Nebraska, her childhood home. The landscape opens itself to Nancy, from the deep woodlands of Iowa she paints on location, referred to as “en plein air” and prefers to complete a work in a single painting session, “alla prima”, a remarkable task. Again, the spontaneity of laying down paint, pushing it around with various tools such as palette knives and brushes, gives the work movement and a vibrancy rarely viewed directly in the creative process. And in winter, when she cannot step outside to capture the beauty of a day, she finds herself in her studio, working with new texture, color palettes, and a chance to create the larger scale work that we will exhibit during this coming gallery walk.
An exhibit not to be missed – stop by The Chait Galleries Downtown and capture a glimpse of the cosmic collisions these two artists create from the elements here on earth!
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