Robert Connell & Phil Greenwood | Through the Branches
EXHIBITION: January 8 - March 1
OPENING: First Thursday, February 1, 6-8pm
Davidson Galleries is pleased to share work from Contemporary artists, Robert Connell and Phil Greenwood, including newly added ink and gouache paintings from Connell.
Though they observe the world from separate continents, their resulting works are united by an appreciation of contrast, texture, and above all, nature. The artists don’t simply look at the environment, they look through it. They capture scenes through webs of tree branches, groups of tree trunks, through heavy mists and golden evening sun. Connell and Greenwood go into the natural world to collect photographs, sketches, and even the first brushstrokes of the work so their pieces come straight from the grasses, riverbanks, and forests that they depict.
With each ink mark, they explain sensations through substances. Connell treats waters and skies as spaces for contrast, leaving areas completely white, just untouched paper. Greenwood fills them to the brim with rich color gradients, textured ripples and clouds. This is also how we see our local ponds and hillsides on different days, in different moods. Sometimes they are awe-inspiring spectacles; sometimes they are blank surfaces for our thoughts and reflections. Sometimes nature leaves us speechless; sometimes it fills us with comments. The beauty is that with both of these artists, their many artworks, and our many selves, we can find the scene that speaks to our nature.
Robert Connell (American, b. 1947) was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in Seattle, Washington. He received a BFA in Painting in Drawing from the University of Washington and studied at the American Center for Art and Artists in Paris. He has exhibited extensively in the Pacific Northwest and has artworks in many esteemed collections. Connell is known for his plein-air paintings that utilize sumi ink and gouache on paper. His work is influenced by both Asian painting techniques and newspaper printing practices, which is how he developed his unique technique combining ink painting on site and applying gouache with a printmaker’s brayer in the studio. His works focus on the Northwest landscape, negative and positive space, and the impact of memory and personal experience on a place.
Phil Greenwood, Evenlight. Etching and aquatint.
Phil Greenwood (Welsh, b. 1943) was born in 1943 in North Wales and raised between London and Wales. He studied printmaking at Harrow and Hornsey Colleges of Art. Greenwood has been a printmaker for 50 years. He has taught and lectured in printmaking, always committed to developing and honing his craft, specifically etching. His work has been shown internationally and is in the collections of many British institutions. Greenwood is known for his landscape etchings created on copper plates that feature a wide range of color and tone produced by few plates. His work focuses on the natural organization of landscapes and their colors. Frequently collecting photographs and sketches from his environment, Greenwood's work explores the atmosphere created by a landscape as opposed to recreating a specific place.