Mastering the Outdoors
Plein Air artist Peter Zell explores Florida via brushstrokes and impasto
The smell of sea and sand, and the warm breeze. Then there is a bright blue sky with clouds forming millions of interesting shapes and hues. The distinctive smell of oil paint and turpentine, and the sound of brushstrokes against canvas, in unison, complete the scene. Peter Zell sits—and after some contemplation and planning— goes into motion. The colors and shapes, which at first seem like marks on the surface, come together magically and produce a magnificent scene. It’s amazing to see how reality becomes even more interesting through his eyes, capturing the spirit of nature and the stillness of the moment with expressionistic mastery.
Born in Riverside, California, in 1947, Zell attended local parochial schools, Santa Clara University and Loyola University, where he earned a law degree. He practiced law for 32 years in and around Los Angeles County. For the past 14 years, Zell has lived with his family on Sanibel Island.
Before retiring in 2005, Zell started taking art classes—following a suggestion from his wife. He completed 12 units of art, including drawing, painting, and art history at California’s Santa Ana College. He also attended several weekend workshops to sharpen his skills. Eventually, Zell progressed from watercolors and acrylics to oil painting. Before moving to Florida, he dabbled in hand-built ce
ramic figures and won a number of student awards.
Zell’s distinctive style did not develop overnight. “I started off as a realist, but started seeing that even if I achieved a realistic painting that might win an award, it seemed boring to me. I started looking for ways to make the painting more interesting by using traditional standards and methods,” explains the artist, who follows a methodical approach.
“I am trying to control how the viewer looks at my painting, and I make sure the painting is representational because I think the viewer should know what I started off trying to show. Then I manipulate forms and shapes, making sure the color is appealing,” he adds.
Zell uses other well-known techniques to shake things up, such as negative painting, scraping, smearing, wiping, drawing with the other end of the brush, pattern making, etc. “I would call my style representational/expressionist.”
The closest thing to a mentor for Zell was his late friend Gordon Coughlin of Sanibel, a dedicated plein air painter who created remarkable impasto landscapes. Coughlin followed a strict plein air ethic of alla prima, with no studio corrections or changes.
“I am not above fixing problems or adding things to a plein air painting in my studio for the benefit of the painting,” notes Zell.
“I started off as a realist, but started seeing that even if I achieved a realistic painting that might win an award, it seemed boring to me. I started looking for ways to make the painting more interesting by using traditional standards and methods.”
He considers himself a “mostly plein air artist” but also works in the studio on larger pieces with figure studies, boats, musical, “Old West,” baseball themes and interior scenes.
Boats in maritime settings offer the opportunity to make interesting art. For the artist, the lines of bigger boats, such as shrimpers or commercial vessels, are interesting to exaggerate in order to achieve odd forms or shapes and still produce an arresting idea of a boat.
Zell adds small, vague figures to his composition to appeal to the viewer. For him, docks are interesting areas because of the clutter and surroundings. Zell favors our Gulf landscape, with smaller boats, fishermen, lighthouses and bridges.
As he describes it, the water itself is full of surprises, including the morning glare, sparkles, changing blues, and wave action. “When painting water, you are usually dealing with a horizon and a big sky, which provide the challenge of doing clouds, and there is nothing like the cloud formations in south Florida,” says the passionate artist, who sees plein air as an opportunity for immediacy of the process.
Zell’s art is admired by many Southwest Florida artists. “His work stands out,” explains artist Tracy Owen Cullimore of Hirdie Girdie Art Gallery on Sanibel. “His use of design and composition are exceptional, and he has an eye for capturing the unusual in his unique, cartoon-like style with [a] sense of humor.”
In December 2018, Zell was featured as a guest artist at DAAS
CO-OP Art Gallery in Fort Myers. He’s exhibiting with the Florida Artists Group at the Naples Art Association during March 2019. In addition to Hirdie Girdie, Zell’s work is available at Two Islands Gallery on Captiva and Alpine Furnishings in Lake Tahoe, California. David Acevedo is a visual artist born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. He is the founder of DAAS COOP Art Gallery & Gifts and the Union Artist Studios in Fort Myers. He has a degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus and is a co-founder of the Fort Myers Art Walk.