CAROL GUZMAN’S WORK CELEBRATES THE WORLD, FROM GLORIOUS LANDSCAPES TO DAILY CHORES, WITH FINE STROKES AND BROAD APPROACHES. Small subjects attract her attention, turn in her hands and underscore a self-awareness of her own surroundings. Guzman’s paintings live between the lines. Her work encapsulates the faintest whisper of shadow and the loudest spillover of light. She draws obvious inspiration from her environment and by doing so, inspires the appreciation of all places, wild and tamed.
On her canvas objects reveal their histories, animals bear the scars of their evolution. Guzman’s paintings bring with them the past of all things, clearly visible beneath the layers of forward motion.
Her work can be found in the collections of Maryvonne and Chuck Leshe; John and Sue Simpson-Gallagher; Hilary Heminway; Ben and Jane Stapleton; Karen and Jeff Miller; Ian and Floppy White; Dale and Margaret Vermillion; as well as Judith King. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia.
Guzman lives with her husband, landscape artist Clyde Aspevig, in central Montana. Her work has shown at the Masters of the American West Show at the Autry National Center, Burbank, California; the American Masters at The Salmagundi Club, New York, New York; the Bradford Brinton Memorial Museum, Big Horn, Wyoming; the University of Wyoming Art Museum; the Scottsdale Artists School; the Sangre de Cristo Art Center; the Forbes Museum Gallery in New York City; the Coors Western Art Exhibit in Denver, Colorado; the Montana Masterpieces Show through The Nature Conservancy; the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming; the Loveland Museum in Colorado; the Haggin Museum, Stockton, California as part of the Sea to Shining Sea Show; the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas; the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, Owensboro, Kentucky; the Museum of the Southwest, Midland, Texas; the Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama; the Portsmouth Museum, Portsmouth, Virginia; and the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin.
She is represented by Trailside Galleries, Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Simpson-Gallagher Gallery, Cody, Wyoming; and Two Medicine Gallery, Whitefish, Montana. Her work can be further viewed at her Web site
www.carolguzman.com .
Nathan Bennett
Using the patina process on bronze plates as his canvas, Nathan Bennett mines new veins in painting. His landscapes have a surreal quality, a sense of otherness, which is partly due to his unusual medium. Taking the chemicals normally used to finish bronze sculptures — the oxides, nitrates and acids — Bennett instead wields them as he would paint on an eighth-inch-thick sheet of silica bronze that becomes his canvas.
The work itself is stark, haunting almost, in its barrenness. His landscapes startle. Without relying too much on the materials themselves for effect, Bennett realizes nature in cold hard metal, light in acidity and a kind of esthetic spirituality born of poetic austerity.
Over the last 12 years, Bennett’s art has been exhibited in a solo show at the Meyer East Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; as part of a group show at Terra Nova Gallery, Provo, Utah; in a group show at Meyer-Munson Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; a one person show at Meyer-Munson Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and in a solo exhibit at Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Bennett’s work is currently held in the LDS Church History Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah; the Springville Museum of Art, Springville, Utah; the Hope Gallery’s Permanent Collection, Provo, Utah; The Greenhouse Center for Growth and Learning, Pleasant Grove, Utah; as well as in private collections around the world. He is represented by the Meyer East Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Mountains Trails Gallery in Park City, Utah.
Vala Ola
The smooth bodies and delicate limbs of Vala Ola’s figurative sculptures seem to dance on the head of a pin. Ola, originally from Iceland, brought her classical bronze forms to the United States, reminding us of the artistic importance in finely detailed sculpture. Ola’s sensitivity to grace and eternity alight on a contemplative repose with a single gesture.
She embeds each piece with emotional power, somehow transcending her materials to express passion and innocence, self-awareness and complete abandon. With her European training, Ola’s work tends to every line and movement with careful attention to the ideal of form and finish.
Her work has shown at the National Sculpture Society 75th and 76th Annual Shows, in New York City; the Allied Artists of America, New York;
Peppertree Art Show, Santa Ynez Valley, California; Sage Creek Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico;
International Guild of Realism Annual Show, Scottsdale, Arizona; the Wichita Art Museum’s The New Reality IGOR Museum Tour, Wichita, Kansas; The Springfield Museums, Springfield, Massachusetts; the Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; and Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin, among others.
She is represented by J. Willott Gallery, Palm Desert, California; Sage Creek Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico; E.S. Lawrence Gallery, Aspen, Colorado; Jones and Terwilliger Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California; Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, California.
