UPCOMING SHOW
S HOW LO C AT ION JAC K S ON, W Y
Up to 25 works July 1-31, 2016 Trailside Galleries 130 E. Broadway Jackson, WY 83001 (307) 733-3186
DINAH WORMAN
Shifting perspectives
I
mmediately recognizable in the landscapes of New Mexico-based artist Dinah Worman are the composition and the texture. In terms of the composition, Worman’s works are noted for a high horizon line and diagonals that take the viewer’s eyes on a journey through the painting. For her texture, there is the build-up of thick paint as well as a scratching technique that has developed in the pieces recently. These qualities of Worman’s work provide unique dimension in both the design and the application of paint. Worman’s newer addition of scratching the paint developed organically as she began the pieces for her upcoming solo exhibition Shifting
Fractured Landscape, oil, `30 x 24"
106
Perspectives at Trailside Galleries in Jackson, Wyoming. “Whenever I do a show, it’s so intense at the end of doing 20 or 25 pieces that work is starting to shift. It’s just that pushing to break through boundaries,” Worman explains. “Even though I’m painting thick, I’m wanting to scratch back on it and build up a texture that is edgier and has the texture from a palette knife when you scrape back and paint it again…It’s something that I like, and that’s happened as a result of the show.” The landscapes Worman paints are reflective of the West. “It’s really more of the Western landscape. It’s not as green as it is in other parts of the country, so you can see the bones of the landscape a little better,” says
Worman. “For these sorts of sharp diagonal lines I use, I find that’s very much a part of the whole country’s landscape, but I like seeing it here where the earth is exposed because we don’t have enough moisture.” One of Worman’s works in the show is Cattle in Winter. Of the piece, she describes, “That is a conglomeration of the landscape that you get really in Colorado to a large degree and Wyoming, and there’s other places certainly, but it’s those high landscapes. You have a good distance, and you’re not overcome by trees. You can see that high horizon with the old buildings scattered on it. Usually there is a road or another thing running diagonally. I love that ‘Z’ composition, and I just can’t get
Cattle in Winter, oil, 60 x 48"
Red Barn in Winter, oil, 40 x 40
away from it.” Another snowy scene is Red Barn in Winter, a 40-by-40-inch work that includes a larger red barn in the upper left of the composition. “I took a small piece from another painting, and I wanted the building to be more than
a building—not just a design element like it is when I do the distant rows of buildings,” Worman explains. “[The red barn] just got kind of blown up and I had fun with that because it’s more close-up, and it becomes more personal when it’s close-up like that.”
Shifting Perspectives is on view at the gallery for the month of July. Fo r a d i re c t l i n k to t he e x h i b it i n g g a l l e r y g o to w w w. we ste r n a r tc o l l e c to r. c o m
107