Dinah Worman & Heather Foster
Near and far
The exhibition Visions: Near & Far at Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colorado, features the work of Heather Foster and Dinah Worman, both of whom live in Northern New Mexico and interpret the landscape, farms and cattle ranches from their own perspectives. The exhibition opens August 29 and runs through September 23.
Foster’s cattle portraits often show the
animal as curious about the artist as she is about them. She says, “I have been working on a cattle series for almost 10 years. In order to create this series, I have been visiting ranches and dairy farms, where I thoroughly enjoy meeting the animals. I hope that each painting conveys this affection and tells a different story, perhaps even making the viewer wonder exactly what may be going on in the cattle’s heads.”
She admits that she’s always working and says, “Everywhere you go you see something you want to paint.” Gila Cattails is one of those moments. “I was intrigued by the water. I feel that looking at the water is so many things all at once. There’s the reflection of what’s above, the surface that changes with the current and the way the wind blows. The cattails add horizontals and verticals. It’s a metaphor for everything that’s going on in the world around us.”
In Three and a Half Cows, as in many of her farm paintings, Worman’s cows gaze at the artist from afar with what she calls “a plaintive look.” Three and a Half Cows is an example of her frequently foreshortened landscapes, compressing the sense of depth. She doesn’t strive for verisimilitude and says, “I want to paint from my eyes back rather than from my eyes forward. My interpretation is more important to me than the scene itself.”
In Light on the Sangre de Cristos she abstracts the scene, reducing it to its basic forms. She enjoys the challenge of low and high horizons which can be seen in both paintings and enjoys as well, the challenge of painting larger.
Early settlers referred to the late afternoon and early morning color of the mountains as the “Blood of Christ.” “I can see the mountains from my studio,” she says, “but one day I went out and sat from late afternoon until dark watching the color change. It’s so extraordinary. When I painted the large panel of the Sangre de Cristos, which is 48 by 60 inches, I loaded in a little more red to capture that emotional sensation of being surrounded by red that I feel when I look at the mountains.”