INSIDE Jackson Hole Art Auction • Wildlife Art • Quest for the West • Glenn Dean SEPTEMBER 2016
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UPCOMING SHOW
S HOW LO C AT ION JAC K S ON, W Y
Up to 12 works September 1-30, 2016 Trailside Galleries 130 E. Broadway Jackson, WY 83001 (307) 733-3186
BRENT COTTON
Ranch Near Ft. Shaw, Montana, oil on linen, 32 x 40”
Cottonwood Dawn, oil on linen, 40 x 20”
Mastering light
I
n Capturing the Light, Brent Cotton’s new show at Trailside Galleries in Jackson, Wyoming, the Montana-based artist explores the transcendent subtleties of light on his timeless landscapes. He paints a celestial form of light—brilliant and consuming in his luminist works, powerful and articulate in his more traditional landscapes. In each new piece Cotton seems to be stretching his skills out in every direction. “In every painting I want to try to push myself, to grow, to try something new. With this showcase in particular, I just don’t want to be afraid to explore all these various moods and techniques,” he says. “Each piece is an opportunity to strive to grow as an artist.” Cotton’s new work features many of his favorite subjects—twisting streams, fishermen in calm repose at water’s edge, Montana’s open skies and high ridgelines—yet no two paintings feature the same kind of light. In Along the Banks of Clark Fork, the artist paints beautifully lit trees and a distant hill in a late-afternoon glow, and then in Creekside Dusk he paints what is essentially a nocturne, but with remnants of the sun still shimmering in the sky. In Creekside Dusk, Cotton also does
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Along the Banks of the Clark Fork, oil on linen, 12 x 10”
March on the Upper Blackfoot, oil on linen, 32 x 40”
something else brave: he allows the shadows to envelop the scene almost entirely. “I questioned myself numerous times on that one. I questioned the color palette, the darkness of the scene, the mood and the subtlety of the light. I want your eye to go to that campfire and the two figures around it. But I also wanted to leave the scenery vague with few details in the shadows—I wanted to create a mood and to let your own eye put details where there was none,” he says. “I had a lot of fun creating the piece and I think I struck a nice balance. It’s going to be interesting to see it under different light in the gallery.”
For March on the Upper Blackfoot, Cotton was inspired by a recent fishing trip in western Montana. “I wanted to capture the intensity of light and shadow that were coming across the stream and snow. I really liked the intense red and rust colors in the willows, combined with the emerald green of the glacier-fed stream. All of those elements made me stop and go wow,” he says. “That piece is a bit bolder for me because it had a lot of strong color and not a lot of atmosphere.” Other pieces in Capturing the Light include Ranch Near Ft. Shaw, MT, which depicts a peaceful ranch amid a cluster of tall trees, and
Cottonwood Dawn, which is a quintessential Cotton piece with its strong silhouettes, a lone fisherman, hazy atmosphere and a nearly monochromatic color palette with yellow ochre and burnt umber. Cotton, an avid fisherman himself, hopes pieces like this take viewers back to a time and place in their own lives, to a place where light shone so brilliant it burned its image into their very souls. 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
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