Collector’s Focus: Winged Creatures
Ron Kingswood speaks of “a single universal content that we use which is shrouded in form. I tend to perceive nature as form and structure.” The structure of his paintings, often spare, is reminiscent of Japanese prints and paintings. His love of paint is evident in its thick, painterly application.
He grew up hunting with his uncles and his father and, at the age of nine, began painting watercolors of the animals he encountered. He says, “When ruminating on these events, the act of carrying the birds or mammals for them was an important time for my early development and growth. It gave me an opportunity to study their catch in the hand.”
His representational style gave way to more impressionistic canvases for a period and has returned in a vibrant combination of both. He said at the time, “I believe when one guards him or herself and their work too tightly with all sorts of fears and apprehensions, the accidental and perhaps the incidental no longer breaths. The work no longer remains a thought or belief, it is suffocated by fear.”
Lars Jonsson was born in Sweden and began painting birds when he was four. “My personal way of reaching a point of true expression is painting in the field,” he says. “It is by observing and sketching and painting in the field that I am able to formulate something that comes close to what I myself experience while watching wildlife. I try to capture the individual bird or animal, in a precise time and place in order to create absolute presence, in order to break up the barrier between me or us and the wild. It is only when I feel strongly connected to nature that I possibly can formulate something interesting…the pencil and brushes are my tools to formulate me as a human being, to hopefully touch upon the ancient and mysterious relationship between man and nature.”
By observing, he becomes aware of strong compositions. In Evening
Light Pintails, the birds themselves, provide an inescapable design as the patterns of their feathers and the shape of their forms are reflected in the water. The sinuous lines of the birds are contrasted by the merely suggested setting and the quick brush strokes of the background.
Jonsson says, “I feel a strong primitive attraction towards painting, towards creating a feeling of truth…it is faithfulness to nature I am seeking.”
Continue ready to hear from an additional artist who has a love of winged creatures and has creative advice for those who wish to collect.
Artist William F. Reese, died in 2010, but left behind a body of work that celebrated the Northwest and all the creatures that inhabited the area. Reese is more known for his plein air works in oil, but also has pieces in watercolor, pastel and sculpture.
Reese has quite the range of subjects that depicts quail, ducks and his favorite bird, the raven, which he loved for its shape. A gem among his collection is the painting Big Red. “Big Red was a young rooster who had just gotten his adult feathers and was strutting his stuff” says Reese’s wife Fran. “William loved the rooster mostly for his colors and the way the light patterned on his feathers.”
“Buying artwork is something that is personal to each person,” said Reese of collecting winged creations. “My advice to collectors is to buy what you like and you will enjoy the artwork for many years.”