Tinged with Fantasy, Phyllis Shafer’s Plein Air Work Twist the Serene Great thing about the American West — Colossal




Artwork
Nature

#landscapes
#portray
#Phyllis Shafer
#plein air

July 16, 2024

Grace Ebert

“Moonrise” (2015), oil on canvas, 32 × 38 inches. All photographs © Phyllis Shafer, shared with permission

For Phyllis Shafer, house and time are inextricably tethered. “The longer I’ve painted, the extra I’ve prolonged my focal vary. A spatial stretch in my work pertains to time and possibly the development of my life,” she says. “House is a approach of laying out time.”

Shafer is a plein-air painter and interprets the boundless landscapes close to her Lake Tahoe dwelling into putting vistas tinged with fantasy. From about April to October, she packs up her canvases, brushes, and tubes of oil paints and hikes into the wilderness of the American West. There, she focuses on capturing messages and surprises that spring from the panorama, whether or not a trio of swallowtail butterflies seemingly showing out of nowhere or clouds swooping upward like a murmuration swelling on the horizon.

Winter and early spring are spent within the studio, the place Shafer veils the terrain in her signature warped type. In works like “Moonrise,” a grassy meadow curls up the edges of the canvas, whereas trippy, swirling skies ripple throughout the highest. The artist harmonizes a constancy to the land together with her imaginative type and maintains recognizable and biologically correct specimens amid extra surreal environment. “This torquing of perspective is simply a part of what helps to make this really feel prefer it’s my very own,” she provides.

 

a landscape painting of small desert shrubbery in the foreground with monumental mountains topped with snow in the background

“Mt. Tom” (2024), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches

Simply as straight strains are uncommon in nature, so are they in Shafer’s work. Horizons are likely to bow and lean throughout vast sections of the canvas, whereas wispy, dried grasses and craggy pathways layer wild textures. The artist is attuned to the connection between the intricacies of the foreground and the huge expanses within the background, including:

Scale shift is one other large one for me. I like specializing in the minutia of what’s proper at your ft, the vegetation which are blooming at the moment. What I discover is that after I exit to the horizon, I would like these peaks to appear like these peaks. They’re not generic. I really feel this constancy to a selected mountain vary, a selected peak. It’s a approach of honoring the place.

Having lived within the Tahoe space for a number of years, Shafer’s works typically doc a panorama that’s since undergone a big change. Cell towers pop up atop mountains, new animals and bugs discover their method to the area amid warming international temperatures, and populations contract and develop, bringing extra individuals and foot site visitors to an space. Spanning twenty years, quite a few areas, and a number of seasons, her work create a wealthy tapestry of life because it was. “Should you love one thing, you then really feel a duty to handle it. And hopefully, that’s my message,” she provides. “Care for our land.”

The artist is presently getting ready for the Coeur d’Alene Artwork Public sale later this month, the place “Mt. Tom” will likely be on view. She’s represented by Maxwell Alexander Gallery and Stremmel Gallery, the latter of which can host an exhibition of her work subsequent 12 months. Till then, peruse an archive of her work on Instagram.

 

a landscape painting of a forest and rocky hiking path

“Conifer Dance” (2023), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches

a landscape painting of a forest and mountain in a desert with small plants and a large pink flowered thistle poking through the foreground

“Thistle’s Repose” (2019), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches

a landscape painting with moonlight shining on a small stream at the center. dried grasses and plants surround it as it extends to the horizon

“Moonrise Over Stevens Peak” (2022), oil on linen, 48 × 62 inches

a landscape painting of a forest and mountain in a desert with small plants poking through the foreground

“View to Hope” (2022), oil on linen, 26 × 34 inches

#landscapes
#portray
#Phyllis Shafer
#plein air

 

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