Artwork
Nature
#landscapes
#portray
#Phyllis Shafer
#plein air
“Moonrise” (2015), oil on canvas, 32 × 38 inches. All photos © Phyllis Shafer, shared with permission
For Phyllis Shafer, area and time are inextricably tethered. “The longer I’ve painted, the more I’ve extended my focal range. A spatial stretch in my paintings relates to time and maybe the progression of my life,” she says. “Space is a way of laying out time.”
Shafer is a plein-air painter and interprets the boundless landscapes close to her Lake Tahoe residence 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 just part of what helps to make this feel like it’s my own,” she provides.
“Mt. Tom” (2024), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches
Simply as straight traces are uncommon in nature, so are they in Shafer’s work. Horizons are likely to bow and lean throughout large 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 massive one for me. I like specializing in the minutia of what’s proper at your ft, the crops which are blooming at the moment. What I discover is that once I exit to the horizon, I need 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 manner of honoring the place.
Having lived within the Tahoe space for a number of years, Shafer’s works generally doc a panorama that’s since undergone a big change. Cell towers pop up atop mountains, new animals and bugs discover their solution to the area amid warming world temperatures, and populations contract and increase, bringing extra individuals and foot site visitors to an space. Spanning 20 years, quite a few areas, and a number of seasons, her work create a wealthy tapestry of life because it was. “If you love something, then you feel a responsibility to take care of it. And hopefully, that’s my message,” she provides. “Take care of our land.”
The artist is at present making ready for the Coeur d’Alene Artwork Public sale later this month, the place “Mt. Tom” shall 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 yr. Till then, peruse an archive of her work on Instagram.
“Conifer Dance” (2023), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches
“Thistle’s Repose” (2019), oil on linen, 32 × 38 inches
“Moonrise Over Stevens Peak” (2022), oil on linen, 48 × 62 inches
“View to Hope” (2022), oil on linen, 26 × 34 inches
#landscapes
#portray
#Phyllis Shafer
#plein air
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