Woody Gwyn: The Earth, the Air, the Water

Woody Gwyn

The Earth, the Air, the Water

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Woody Gwyn

The Earth, the Air, the Water

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Eric's Orchard, 2020, 2 36 x 48 inches egg tempera on panel,

Woody Gwyn: The Earth, the Air, The Water With extraordinary luminosity, purity of color and the minutest of detail, it might be said that Woody Gwyn is a painter of clarity itself. Never more welcome than now, when reality seems clouded by epic uncertainties of unprecedented sorts, Gwyn’s paintings provide refreshing reminders of how exhilarating nature’s lucidity can be.

To accompany this exhibition of Gwyn’s recent paintings on panel and mixed-media on paper, LewAllen is pleased to present the following interview with the artist conducted by Alex Gill, our communications manager, on November 2, 2020 at Gwyn’s studio in Galisteo, New Mexico. It includes a number of insights, revealing of the artist’s thinking and his approach to art-making.

In the conversation, Gwyn cites William Blake’s well-known maxim that “if we could but cleanse our eyes, we would see infinity.” This idea of striving for the pristine, the authentic and the unalloyed pervades Gwyn’s work and, in his words, reflects his oft-stated goal of “painting things the way they are.”

Fascinating, too, are Gwyn’s thoughts about what he calls “transubstantiation," referencing the belief in some Christian traditions that the bread and wine given at Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. He suggests that a similar sense of one substance turning into another substance can happen in art, saying that, in fact, this feeling runs through his work. It is as though the purity of a painted image of a landscape can—in its vivid impact on the viewer—transform the experience of painting into the reality of the land itself.

One senses in this interview and in his words, a powerful depth of reflection and thought that underlays the vision of Woody Gwyn. His equally masterful painting skills have made him one of the most acclaimed realist painters of the American landscape. He is an extraordinary artist who clearly engages the land as a sacred place and dedicates his working life to expressing in

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his work the land's redemptive and ineffable power of beauty.

- Kenneth R. Marvel Woody, you were born in Texas, grew up in West Texas, and moved to New Mexico in the mid-70s. How has living in these different environments each influenced the way you view or paint the landscape?

WG: I was raised in West Texas. It’s a very powerful landscape and I think that in itself has affected me and my work. Then there’s the kind of acuity that comes with the dryness and clarity of the atmosphere in New Mexico, and in the way that the land itself is shaped. You could say almost all realist painting is about space and light, and we sure have got a lot of both out here.

In your images, you seem to avoid painting subjects that are picture-perfect, instead turning your attention somewhere else. Could you talk some about your choices of subject?

WG: We are given all of the information we need in order to do whatever it is what we want to do; it’s just a matter of really seeing it and then dealing with it. When Giorgio Morandi was in Venice, he pointed to a window in one of the buildings next to the lagoon and said, “If I can live up in the room up there for five years, with that view, that maybe I can figure out what to do with this landscape.”

Even though we’re all having extremely unique experiences on a personal level, we’re having the same experience on the abstract level. That’s why I hold that my work has a distinct ‘this could have only happened at one moment and one time’ sort of feeling to it, in addition to that abstract under-feeling that’s going on really at all times. I think that’s how we respond to great art—of course, the issue is making it great.

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How would you describe that feeling?

WG: It’s an intuitive feeling, I think. As William Blake said, “If we could but cleanse our eyes, we would see infinity.” If we could cleanse our eyes, we would see that it’s all around us.

Infinity seems like a relevant theme in your work.

WG: Each moment has its unique quality, but underneath, it’s what Gertrude Stein called “the eternal now.” I think that we all sense that. It’s why Bach or Beethoven [did what they did;] they’re telling us something that we need to hear, and it’s very, very difficult to explain or put into words.

Talking about abstraction is so difficult; you’re almost talking about forces, and the interaction between different forces.

WG: It’s very difficult. There is such a thing as the ineffable, and I do think we all sense it just behind the appearance of things.

Part of that sense of the ineffable in your work seems to come from the intersection between imagination and the objective world. If not the literal reconstruction of reality, how would you describe the intent of your realism?

WG: What we yearn for is the truth. When we’re looking at a Rothko, if we respond to it, it’s because it has some kind of quality of truth to it. It’s ineffable. That’s what makes it important, and that’s what makes it valuable, because that’s really what we want. We want the truth. And actually, I think there is a truth. I think there are some things that cannot be reduced any 4

further. One of them, I think, is consciousness. A Rothko has about it a feeling of consciousness, and that’s what we respond to.

As a young artist, you met the western landscape painter Peter Hurd and were inspired by his art. Are there any other artists or artworks that are of particular inspiration for you now, and if so in what way do they influence you?

WG: Of living people, I like Wayne Thiebaud a lot. What I like about Thiebaud, and I sense it with other people I like, is that he came up with a really great idea with his pies and cakes. I’m sure he hates having that subject brought up at this point, but the paint had almost the quality of icing, and so on and so forth.

The point being this: across the street is a Catholic church and during mass, there’s this thing called transubstantiation where the wine becomes the blood and the bread becomes the body.

They transform from one substance into another substance. Well, that’s an incredible thought.

That’s a little bit of the energy of that Thiebaud gets with those great paintings of his, those still-lifes. The paint has transubstantiated into the subject. I like that in an artist’s work.

I think we sense that that starts to happen in your paintings, and in the mixed media pieces and the monotypes.

WG: That’s really what I am after—that, as far as I am concerned, is the magic of painting. I suppose that’s one reason why I like the feeling of light being reflected off of water, of the water actually turning into the light. To me, that has a magical feeling about it. And that’s the feeling that runs through the work I like, that feeling of transubstantiation. I have never quite said it this way, but I’m saying it now.

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There are some scientists that tell us that some subatomic material changes when thought is put upon it. That’s getting pretty far out, but I’m not sitting here making it up. In a way, science seems to be moving towards religion, or even mysticism.

Woody, those mixed-media works on paper that are a significant part of this exhibition are particularly captivating. Can you talk about these works? How does working on paper fit into your process?

WG: Monotype is a fascinating medium for many reasons, but especially because it absolutely will not let you control it. By giving up some of that control, it forces you to be more experimental. It also forces you to consider how to be as direct as possible, and that’s a good thing.

Of course, most of the works on paper in this show aren’t pure monotypes – I’ve gone over most of them with watercolor, gouache, and acrylic, all of which is perfectly legal: monotype itself is a painting but it’s not a painting, and it’s a print but it’s not a print. It’s both, and so it’s something you can do anything you want to with, just like Degas did – and other artists to.

Usually the best things in art-making are quite often those moments where you’re totally surprised. Even in easel painting or plein-air painting, it’s those surprising moments where the work sort of takes over, and those are the real high moments in painting and in printmaking.

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The Earth, the Air, the Water, 2020 oil on canvas, 48 x 78 inches

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Sea Shadows, 2020, mixed media on paper, 17.5 x 21.5 inches

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Meeting at the River, 2017-20, egg tempera on panel, 84 x 48 inches

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Manzano, 2019-20, egg tempera on panel, 48 x 90 inches

SOLD

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Eric's Orchard, 2020, egg tempera on panel, 36 x 48 inches

SOLD

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Pond, 2020, mixed media on paper, 18 x 35 inches

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Sol y Arboles, 2020, mixed media on paper, 17.5 x 21.5 inches

SOLD

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Nacimiento, 2020 mixed media on paper, 18 x 18 inches

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Galisteo, 2020 mixed media on paper, 7 x 27 inches

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Eric's Alcalde Orchard, 2020 mixed media on paper, 11.75 x 17.75 inches

SOLD

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Nube y Mar, 2020, mixed media on paper, 17.5 x 35 inches

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Summer Coast II, 2018-19, egg tempera on panel, 36 x 36 inches

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Ocean 1, 2020, mixed media on paper, 18 x 35.5 inches

SOLD

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Sentinel, 2020, mixed media on paper, 21.5 x 16.5 inches

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Semana Santa, 2020, egg tempera on panel, 36 x 36 inches

SOLD

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Ola, 2020, mixed media on paper, 7 x 26.5 inches

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Additional Major Works

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Tunnel, 1982, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

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Villanueva, 2001, egg tempera on canvas, 48 x 120 inches

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Bixby, 2010, oil on linen, 12 x 192 inches

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Highway 101, c. 1980, serigraph on paper, 8 x 44 inches

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Arrows, 1984, oil on canvas, 48 x 84 inches

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Big Sur, 1989, oil on linen, 24 x 168 inches

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Woody Gwyn

(b. 1944: San Antonio, Texas)

EDUCATION

The Art Center of Waco, Waco, TX; The Museum at

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; and The Amarillo

Art Center, Amarillo, TX

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1983 Davis-McClain Galleries, Houston, TX

2020

The Earth, The Air, The Water, LewAllen

1982 Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY

Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

1981 Heydt/Bair Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2019

Next to Nature, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

1980 Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY

2016

American Vista, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe,

1978 Elaine Horwitch Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

NM

1977 Meredith Long & Co., Houston, TX; also 1975,

2015 Solitary Places, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2014

Recent Landscapes, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art,

1965 Woody Gwyn, Canyon Art Gallery, Canyon, TX

New York, NY; also 2010, 2006, and 2005

2013

Santa Fe’s Holy Trinity of Landscape Painting,

SELECTED GRANTS AND AWARDS

LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2010 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence

2012

Elements of Landscape, LewAllen Galleries,

Santa Fe, NM

1979 National Endowment of the Arts Grant

American Landscapes, George Washington

University, Luther Brady Gallery, Washington, DC

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

2009

Modernism, San Francisco, CA; also 2006, 1986,

Albuquerque Museum of Art, Albuquerque, NM

and 1984

The Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX

Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; also 2007,

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

2004, 2003, 2002, and 1988

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO

2005

Woody Gwyn Revisited, Museum of the

Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN

Southwest, Midland, TX

Fisher Landau Center for Art, New York, NY

2000

MB Modern, New York, NY

Harvard University, Boston, MA

1998

Woody Gwyn: Artist of the Year, Assembly of the

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX

Arts, Midland, TX

Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL

1997

Cline-LewAllen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1996

Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, New York, NY;

New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM

also 1994, 1992, 1991, and 1989

Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX

1995

Horwitch-LewAllen Gallery,

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Santa Fe, NM

Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

1987

Foxley-Leach Gallery, Washington, DC

Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY

1986 Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA;

1974, 1973, 1972, 1971, 1970, 1969, 1968, 1965

in the Arts

Reading Public Museum & Art Gallery, Reading, PA 36

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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com Š 2020 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC Artwork Š Woody Gwyn

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