Phyllis Shafer Verdant Dreams: Landscape Paintings of the American West
STREMMEL GALLERY
The work represented in this exhibition constitutes three years of paintings, highlighting the landscapes to which I have traveled and spent time. That includes, of course, my home base in Lake Tahoe and the surrounding areas of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. During this time I have also traveled to Wyoming, Death Valley, and the northern coast of California on painting excursions. The locales are important only in that I feel a great regard for creating a deep sense of place in each of my paintings – capturing as best I can the personality of a given place. What interests me more, however, is using the landscape as a metaphor for our own interior landscapes, or mindscapes. Through exaggeration, distortion, diminution, and other elements available to me, I am hoping to bring about a narrative that speaks to an inner reality. A reality that takes place between the interior world of the viewer and that of nature. It is also my hope that these paintings make clear my true and abiding love of the natural world, achieved through a careful study of its infinite variations. This body of work includes more of the living creatures that animate the landscape – birds, butterflies, bugs, etc. Their presence adds to the rhythmic oneness of the natural world and hopefully relates to us that fragile balance of which we are the mindful stewards.
Above the North Platte (oil on linen, 18” x 20”)
Thistle’s Parade (gouache on paper, 17” x 22”)
View to Lone Pine Peak (oil on linen, 20” x 18”)
Roundabout (oil on linen, 28” x 42”)
< Salt Point Morning (oil on linen, 20” x 20”)
On the Wind (gouache on paper, 22.5” x 17”)
Look to the Sky, (oil on linen, 26” x 34”)
Loggerhead Shrike (oil on linen, 26” x 34”)
Lake’s Edge (oil on canvas, 22” x 46”)
High from Earth (gouache on paper, 17” x 22.5”)
Her Little Parasol to Lift (gouache on paper, 22.5” x 17”)
Day Undressed Herself (oil on linen, 18” x 20”)
Curious Cloud Surprised the Sky (gouache on paper, 22.5” x 17”)
Cadmium Scarf (gouache on paper, 22.5” x 13”)
Autumn Started Home (oil on canvas, 34” x 42”)
Devil’s Pano (oil on linen, 10” x 48”)
Alone I Cannot Be (gouache on paper, 9” x 20”)
Upon a Raft of Air (gouache on paper, 17” x 22.5”)
Tangerine Swing (gouache on paper, 9” x 20”)
Sky’s Lacy Bonnet (gouache on paper, 17” x 22.5”)
Sagehen Peak (gouache on paper, 17” x 22.5”)
Ocean Cove (gouache on paper, 17” x 22.5”)
Fairy Dance (gouache on paper, 9” x 20”)
Evening Softly Lit (gouache on paper, 9” x 20”)
Thistle’s Repose (oil on linen, 32” x 38”)
Swallowtail Dance (oil on linen, 32” x 38”)
Kodachrome Peaks (gouache on paper, 8” x 19”)
< Kodachrome Peaks (gouache on paper, 8” x 19”)
Painted Desert (gouache on paper8” x 19”)
Salt Point Morning (oil on linen, 18” x 20”)
Mourning Cloak (oil on linen, 18” x 48”)
< Bumblebee Bouquet (oil on linen, 24” x 24”)
High Desert Expanse (oil on linen, 10” x 48”)
Painted Lady (oil on linen, 34” x 42”)
Bug’s Little Vista (gouache on paper, 9” x 20”)
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