HOLIDAY EXHIBITION | JACKSON HOLE, WY
FEAUTURING: JARED SANDERS, DAVID GROSSMANN, DENNIS ZIEMIENSKI AND BEN STEELE
Just as children delight in the surprise of opening each window on an advent calendar, collectors can revel in the wonder achieved by artists working with scale multiples. For the Holiday Show at Altamira, four artists share grids of small scenes. While uniform in size, each canvas testifies to the varied beauty achieved by iterating wintry or Western themes.
Bucking the seasonal shroud of secrecy, Altamira offers a sneak peek at the artists’ holiday offerings:
Jared Sanders
Although accustomed to working on a larger scale, Jared Sanders embraced the small squares as explorations of gesture. “The process of painting these smaller works gave me the opportunity to explore some of my most common themes in a quicker, more immediate way,” he says. As such, his holiday grid serves as a primer on his oeuvre and his most beloved, bucolic subjects. “When these paintings of barns, landscapes and cows are hung as a group, it will give the viewer a good snapshot of the concepts that I most often explore as a painter.”
David Grossmann
As part of his plein-air painting practice, David Grossmann returns seasonally to special landscapes, observing the changing colors and conditions, capturing such effects in his atmospheric scenes. His new paintings meditate on a forested valley close to his home in southern Colorado. By immersing his practice in the physicality of place, Grossmann renders both the natural world and the wonder he feels in situ. “I strap on my snowshoes and make my way through the woods until I find a new vantage point, then I set up my portable easel and try to capture what I’m feeling about the place, the myriad colors reflected in the snow and on the water, the quiet of the world around me, the crisp winter light.” As a result, his new canvases highlight the subtleties of experience and expression. “Hanging these four pieces together brings out some of those patterns and similarities, and hopefully gives people a glimpse into the inspiration I’ve found in this place.”
Dennis Ziemienski
With an unerring eye for iconic graphic design, Dennis Ziemienski has curated a collection of alpine scenes celebrating the panache of snow sports. “I was inspired by the elegance and romance of Alpine skiing depicted in the early 20th century travel posters,” he says. While related, each 24-by-20-inch canvas features a fresh take on a vintage vignette. Like a woman skier, donning a stylish ensemble replete with a printed one-piece and matching beret, all smiles as she swooshes through powder. Holiday indeed.
Ben Steele
Ben Steele melds his classical training in the tropes and techniques of the Old Masters with his playful critique of contemporary life and art. By layering the realism of trompe l’oeil with pop-cultural and art-historical references, he creates vignettes at once reflective and lively. Working within the grid scheme, he riffed on the cowboy boot as a quintessentially Western icon, interpreting each pair through the filter of different art movements (think Pop, etc.). “I love how a cowboy boot ages, scuffs, bends and moves in a unique way as a marker of its very utilitarian purpose,” he says.
Pre-sales available. Contact the gallery for details: connect@altamiraart.com, (307)739-4700.