September Vhay "Alacrity" September 2019

SEP TEMBER VHAY

September 3 – 15, 2019 Jackson Hole

SEP TEMBER VHAY Alacrity

Jackson Hole | Scottsdale | AltamiraArt.com

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Ivory Thunder Oil on Belgian linen | 30 x 45 inches Enquire

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September Vhay

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Movement is the through line of September Vhay’s newest paintings, bright and brisk. Joyful is a strutting raven, a buoyant colt, five mares racing toward the viewer. Even when less literal—like the horse with eyes locked beyond the canvas—movement feels imminent, the force animating her sparse scenes.

An architect by training and an artist by instinct and passion, Vhay paints and allows the theme to rise in reflection. This series epitomizes her mastery of the moment, the instant when a creature acts solely of its own accord, compelled by impulse, full with being. Several paintings focus so intensely on the subject, they read as portraits: a grizzly bear pausing in profile, a palomino prancing.

Context fades into gestures, and Vhay’s tolerance for negative space shines—a restraint refined over the years and over explorations such as in

her red horses. A recent intervention by a friend encouraged her to stop working on an oil sketch of a skull.

The one eye socket and horn Vhay had painted spoke volumes as is; don’t do anymore, the friend said.

The partiality became an essential eloquence.

“I want to become even more minimal,” Vhay says. “Pulling away from context is part of that pursuit.”

Her interpretation of minimal embodies energy, kinetic or potential.

She observes action as life in nature with a patient resolve in her Wyoming home. So even as the surroundings fade into subtlety in her paintings, her grounding in place remains profoundly present as inspiration.

“I keep my life quiet in general, which helps me see more clearly,” the artist says. “The context of my practice is quiet, which allows me to bring quiet content into my painting.”

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Banjo Oil on Belgian linen | 24 x 24 inches Enquire

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Deer Run Tobiano Three Oil on Belgian linen | 20 x 20 inches Enquire

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Sep Spice Oil on Belgian linen | 22.75 x 24 inches Enquire

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Crow Dancer Charcoal on paper | 40 x 70 inches Enquire

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Comanche Oil on Belgian linen | 28 x 31.5 inches Enquire

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Waxing Crescent Charcoal on paper | 40 x 40 inches Enquire

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Ebony Promenade Oil on Belgian linen | 12 x 24 inches Enquire

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Ace of Spades Oil on Belgian linen | 15 x 15 inches Enquire

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172 Center Street | Jackson, Wyoming 83001 AltamiraArt.com | 307-739-4700