Creighton Block - Gilleon and Stevens

Creighton Block Gallery, in cooperation with Altamira Fine Art of Jackson, WY is pleased to announce a major show of work by Tom Gilleon and new work by Laurie Stevens July 1 – July 18, Creighton Block Gallery in Big Sky Town Center.

33 Lone Peak Drive, #104 Artist Reception July 15, 5 – 8 PM.

CREIGHTONBLOCKGALLERY.COM | 406-993-9400

An Otter Time An Otter Place |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 50 Inches

R. Tom Gilleon Trying to pigeonhole R. Tom Gilleon’s paintings into a particular art movement or genre is a fool’s errand. Gilleon’s interpretations of the American West are genuine, provocative and have a serious gravitational effect on the senses. He understands the places where the human heart and soul dwell. Those pieces of terra firma are part of his own identity, and they literally occupy a corner of his visual landscape.

Gilleon is old and seasoned enough to hold an AARP membership card in the pocket of his jeans. However, he is a rising star known for the vitality and freshness he brings to the easel. His work, in the permanent collection of numerous prominent museums, is coveted by collectors.

His representations of native teepees are archetypal and primitive in their basic forms yet remarkably contemporary in their aesthetic sensibilities. His landscapes are classic but exude spontaneity. Along with these, his panels and portraits of American Indians and cultural symbols are illustrative in their narrative quality, and at the same time so poignant in their iconography that one immediately thinks of Andy Warhol during the height of Pop and Op art.

Gilleon’s path to the West was roundabout. Born in 1942, he was raised in Florida by a set of grandparents who bestowed in him a confident rebel’s spirit. He grew up in the tiny outpost of Starke, near Jacksonville and the storied banks of the Suwannee River.

Later, he moved to California with a team of illustrators to work at Disney’s Imagineering studio in charge of designing Epcot Center. He went on to assist the company with its planning of Disneyland Tokyo, Disneyland Hong Kong and Disneyland Paris.

During the early 1980s, Gilleon and his wife attended an outdoor painting workshop in Montana and fell in love with a beautiful piece of property along the Dearborn River that snakes out of the Northern Rockies onto the high plains. The couple purchased the land and spent nine years building a home. They paid for the construction using the income they both derived from working as an illustrator and painting murals. For instance, Gilleon completed matte paintings for the movie, Dick Tracy. When a Hollywood screenwriter turned producer made the Gilleons an offer for their Montana hideaway that they couldn’t refuse, they took the proceeds and purchased a 2,000-acre ranch near Great Falls, Montana with the profile of Mt. Cecelia rising in the distance.

Blood Brothers II | R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 60 x 60 inches

Two Guns White Calf |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 32 x 24 Inches White Bull |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 32 x 24 Inches

White Horses of Fall |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 16 x 16 Inches Buffalo Hills |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 16 x 16 Inches Horse Soldier |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 50 Inches Conspiracy or Murder? |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 16 x 16 Inches

Big Sky Scraper |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 48 x 36 Inches

Moment Du Passe|R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 30 Inches

Three Wise Men |R. Tom Gilleon | New Media Digital Art | 49 x 86 Inches

The idea for new media art installation began the way many conversations begin between Disney Imagineers: by asking, “what if?” Gilleon asked his friend and associate Marshall Monroe, “What if we could make a painting kinetic? What if we could capture the changing light from sunrise to sunset and watch the moon’s journey across the sky? What if we could watch the snow falling inside a painting or the shifting aurora borealis?”

Monroe replied, “When do you want to start?”

The installation was developed over the course of a year. Gilleon’s napkin sketches, sticky notes, and coffee-stained envelopes eventually became working drawings. In the skilled hands of Monroe, twelve separate paintings became a single living, moving work of art.

The first digital instillation, Eternal Triangle debuted at Gilleon’s one-man show at Altamira Fine Art in Jackson, Wyoming, in July 2013. Since than Gilleon have created two more digital artworks, Hungry Fox and Three Wise Men (still images shown above) both hanging in this show.

Les Trois Maisons |R. Tom Gilleon | Oil on Canvas | 56 x 100 Inches

Laurie Stevens Born in Billings, Montana, raised there and in Arizona, Stevens is a product of America’s west. It is in the wide open with a full view of the horizon and under a nighttime spray of stars that she is at home. However, her quest for adventure – and a career in art, led her to Los Angeles many years ago.

There, she soon was working in the entertainment industry as a scenic artist and muralist – one of the first women to work in that end of “the business”. The job required painting sometimes huge backdrops and other art pieces for television, theater, theme park and movie productions. Laurie also did matte paintings for several children’s animated movies, traveled with the Ice Follies, worked in Las Vegas and Reno on shows for the Reno MGM Grand; and on location around the country with different movie and theme park companies. She worked for Disney Imagineering doing murals and attraction backdrops for the Disney Parks worldwide. Laurie also went on to do some set design and illustration for several theme park design groups. tevens loved working in the business, but LA never felt like home to her. Two years before she left California, she bought a house in Soledad Canyon north of the city – sharing a canyon hilltop with Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife (animal actors). Tippy Hedron’s Shambala Reserve occupied the river canyon below. While she was there, Laurie reveled in life surrounded by wild animals and her own experiences with the animals and trainers. She has many unusual stories to tell of that time! Waking up in the morning was not by alarm clock, but instead by the melodic crescendo of wild animals awakening at first light – first the cougars huffing, then the lions roaring and the wolves howling. She began to understand that home for her meant a more primal place than Los Angeles, CA. One snowy January, while attending a painting workshop at a dude ranch near Augusta, MT., Laurie and soon to be husband Tom fell in love with the area and bought a beautiful property there on the rushing Dearborn River. The subsequent move to that majestic, wild mountain place, just an hour’s horseback ride from the Scapegoat Wilderness, was something they never regretted.

For some years, Stevens’ attention turned to other things; the raising of her two girls; the necessary running of ranch, house and studio building projects; and the development of a unique business in Augusta, MT., Latigo & Lace – a gallery of fine art and Montana handcrafts, started by Laurie and five other Augusta women. Painting was always on her mind though, and as the girls grew older, she got out her brushes again. This time her focus was to paint the life and people of the western plains.

Stevens’ home for years now has been the Y Worry Ranch near Cascade, MT. Story has it that famed artist Charlie Russell visited the ranch homesteaders regularly as he too lived for a time in Cascade. Tales of the early settlers are numerous, and are yet visible in the nearby tipi rings, stone cairns and old wagon tracks that cross this high, prairie landscape.

The ranch environment calls Laurie’s attention to the circle of life, and our place within the circle. It is from this wellspring that she finds both personal and artistic inspiration. Stevens especially enjoys painting the ever changing landscape and the interaction between animals or people and their environment. Immersed in the culture of the still old west, Laurie finds herself especially attracted to the timeless stories of people living on the land and dealing with Mother Nature on a daily basis.

Stevens is a founding member of Montana Painters Alliance, and a member of Oil Painters of America. Her work can be found in both regional and national shows and galleries, and in the collections of the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, GA., the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, MT., Phillips Academy in Andover, MA., the USAF and Marty Skylar – past President of Walt Disney Imagineering, among others.

Storm Coming In | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 Inches

A Snapping Twig | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 20 x 20 Inches

Always Be Ready | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 24 Inches

As Summer into Autumn Goes | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 24 x 24 Inches

Blue Moose | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 20 x 20 Inches

Collected | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 20 x 20 Inches

Drifting | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas |30 x 24Inches

Jasmine | Laurie Stevens| Oil on Canvas | 16 x 20 Inches

Rhapsody & Harmony | Laurie Stevens | Oil on Canvas | 24 x 24 Inches

CREIGHTONBLOCKGALLERY.COM | 406-993-9400