30 Apr ARTIST SPOTLIGHTS: DOUG ATWILL

Doug Atwill may well embody the definition of a modern Renaissance man. Yes, he paints landscapes and garden scenes bursting with vibrant colors and lively patterns in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he has made his home for the past five and a half decades. But in that time, he has also written and published six novels, plus several volumes of short stories, poetry, and memoirs; three illustrated volumes displaying and explaining collections of his paintings; and another illustrated memoir focusing on the 59 houses he has designed and built or renovated in the city. Before arriving in the Land of Enchantment, he served in the U.S. Army counterintelligence in Europe and spent 5 years working in advertising in Richmond, Virginia.

Photo: Billy Halstead

To be sure, that resume takes one’s breath away. Through it all, art has been a part of Atwill’s life since his early childhood years in Pasadena, California. “Even as a child, I always painted,” he says. “But I was pretty much self-taught, though I did take some life-drawing classes while majoring in English at the University of Texas. And, after the Army, I looked at a lot of classical art while studying for half a year at the University of Perugia in Italy.”

Mesa at Navajo II | Acrylic on Linen | 60 x 36 inches | 2024

Following his move to the artists’ haven of Santa Fe in 1970, Atwill began painting in the evenings while earning his living through all those houses he created. Then, he says, “In 1975, I realized I should be painting full time.” And so he did, quickly gaining gallery representation and gradually evolving his style through Impressionism; to the bolder colors and fluid forms found among Fauvists like Henri Matisse, André Derain, Georges Rouault, and Raoul Dufy; to his own current more restrained yet still bold and vibrant contemporary approach. “I always resist trying to put paintings into words,” Atwill says, “because each painting itself is a form of communication.”

Mesa View Garden | Acrylic on Linen | 48 x 24 inches | 2024

Today, still at his easel at the age of 91, Atwill produces work that is avidly snapped up by collectors. One glance at his recent Mesa at Navajo II instantly demonstrates why. The vertical canvas emphatically dramatizes the sweep of the Southwestern desert landscape, with a red rock mesa rising in the distance and the foreground presenting a near-kaleidoscopic expression of scrub, sagebrush, and arroyos. By contrast, Atwill achieves an exuberant sense of intimacy in colorful scenes he depicts from his own or friends’ Santa Fe gardens, where zinnias, peonies, poppies, daisies, delphiniums, and other flowers burst into bloom like fireworks, a direct expression of the joy he finds through his art. “Painting has never felt like work for me,” he says. “And I still love it.”

Atwill is represented by Oh Be Joyful! Gallery in Crested Butte, Colorado; and New Concept Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Based in Marin County, California, Norman Kolpas is the author of more than 40 books and hundreds of articles. He also teaches nonfiction writing in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.