Solo exhibit for landscape painter
Perennial landscape painter David Schwindt has pulled the stops in his “On the Road 2014” solo paintings exhibition at Framing Concepts. The more-than-30-piece show offers viewers a fresh look at some of Schwindt’s favorite locations.
Schwindt caught his stride years ago but has evolved into a more relaxed and confident artist with each ensuing show. “On the Road 2014” represents his most consistently luscious body of work so far. The show features a documentary workbook that offers tremendous insight into Schwindt’s working process with shots of scenes, watercolor sketches, and preliminary drawings with over the shoulder shots of works in progress.
The most important insight offered by his diminutive tome is a clear view of what Schwindt leaves out or alters in a given scene. Cameras and, yes, even digital cameras tend to shift colors, and due to their high-speed shutters, tend to freeze motion. Schwindt’s task is to reanimate the clouds, shifting sunlight and sometimes pale natural palette and put the rustle back into the leaves.
In this show Schwindt succeeds brilliantly.
Several years ago Taos artist Larry Bell woke up at 4 a.m. because he remembered a glint of color and light coming from a huge stack of cutup paintings that he had thrown into a dumpster. Bell was doing a spring cleaning and had cut up paintings that fell short of what he was trying to achieve.
His sudden awaking led to his rescuing those fragments. The incident led to Bell’s 10,000-piece “Fractions” series. Bell had discovered the value in parts of compositions that may have failed as a whole.
In similar albeit less dramatic fashion, Schwindt holds on to paintings that don’t satisfy him until he finds an insight into what makes them fall short.
Schwindt originally painted “Colors of Maple,” an autumn scene from Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, more than 10 years ago. During his major artistic road trip this year that covered 7,000 miles through 10 western states and two Canadian providences in 47 days, Schwindt revisited Oak Creek Canyon and revised his memory and insight. The encounter resulted in an awe-inspiring revision of “Colors of Maple.”
On separate sojourns this year Schwindt visited Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and Arizona’s Grand Canyon, where he completed many of the small paintings in “On the Road 2014.”
In “North Rim View East” and “Wotan’s Throne” Schwindt does an elegant job of suppressing detail in service of clarity. His deliciously relaxed brushwork animates the stony edifices and breathes life into what some see as inanimate rock. Schwindt has the ability to garner fresh insight into often rendered scenes that other artists miss.
With aspen paintings being almost as ubiquitous as hollyhock paintings I was pleasantly surprised by Schwindt’s “Aspen Summer” with its fresh composition and exciting color clarity.
His “Lake Louise” in the Canadian Rockies is one of a slew of stunning new water scenes that include the California Pacific coast, waterfalls and hot springs pools in Yosemite.
In “Abyss Pool” the wafting steam cloud above the fathomless and reflective water brings the viewer to the site. Schwindt deftly conveys both the welcome warmth and inherent danger of the situation.
Landscape painting represents a gigantic segment of contemporary art and offers both artists and collectors an array of images that feed the soul and allow us to overcome our too often denatured daily lives.
Schwindt has developed a clear voice to cut through the din, and for those who prefer a conservative approach to realism, is an artist to fully enjoy.