ENCAUSTIC PAINTER SUZANNE TRUMAN OFFERS UP A GLIMPSE INTO A POSSIBLE TRUTH INSPIRED BY THE NATURAL WORLD THROUGH LAYERS OF PAINT AND WAX. Although somewhat abstract at first, each piece reflects the Western external landscape as well as an emotional, interior landscape. Her colors — informed by maps and grids, flocks of birds, and pastures moving through the seasons — celebrate the earth and embrace the viewer in a kind of blindfolded innocence.
After the thick paint is laid on, Truman then gouges the surface, scratching in marks, codices, symbols, scraping and sometimes adding strata to further instill her unique sense of place.
Her work has been acquired for both private and public collections including the Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; the University of Montana Fine Arts Museum, Missoula, Montana; The Cancer Treatment Center, Charleston, South Carolina; the Waller-Yoblanski Collection, Washington, D.C.; Spink, Butler and Clapp, LLP, Boise, Idaho; David Quammen; and Bananas Bar, Lexington, Kentucky.
In 2009 Truman was awarded the LEAW Foundation Fellowship, a one-month fully-funded artist residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia; in 2001 she was given the Florence B. Anderson Memorial Award in Painting, and in 2000, she was juried into the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, New York.
Suzanne Truman is represented by the Stewart Gallery, Boise, Idaho; Fresh Paint Art Advisors, Culver City, California; Stellers Gallery, Jacksonville, Florida; and Betsy Swartz Fine Art Consulting, Bozeman, Montana.
Charles Schridde records pure exhilaration in paint. His out-of-the-box color choices emphasize the immediacy of life, with an acute emotional impact of the subjects he paints. Schridde doesn’t paint images, he conveys moments. His attention to detail brings the dust of a rodeo to the mouth of reality, the hot sun of a desert day into the eyes of substance.
Coming from an esteemed career as a commercial illustrator and photographer, Schridde knows well the effects of dramatic light, color and movement. With brilliant technique and inspiring interpretation, Schridde portrays the West in all its brunt and glory.
His work resides in the collections of the Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia; Carol Legg, Phoenix, Arizona; the McGrew Ranch, St. Jo, Texas; Kim and Curt Pence, Salem, Oregon; Tom Synder, Indian River, Michigan; and Bob Tyndall, Las Vegas, Nevada. Juried paintings have sold in such noted auctions as The Professional Bull Riders Association Auction, C. M. Russell Auction, Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Auction, Santa Fe Art Auction, Western Artists of America Show and Sale and the Open Range Auction.
He has garnered awards for “Best Bull” medal for oil painting Van Gogh Bull, PRCA, San Francisco (the painting was later purchased by the Booth Museum in Georgia); National-Best Western Fair Poster; Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival: 3rd Place; Palm Springs Desert Museum, Artists Council Exhibition: 2nd Place; Palm Springs Desert Museum, Artists Council Exhibition: People’s Choice; and in September, 2009, he was named “Artist of the Month” from Scottsdale Artists League, Scottsdale, Arizona.
Scott Tallman Powers is a painter’s painter. Not only because of his exquisite brushstrokes, his enlightened perspective or the remarkable way in which he always relates foreground to background in the tradition of Robert Henri. Technically speaking, Powers is indeed a master of his craft. But beyond that, he has an ability to show viewers more than his brilliant form of realism. He conveys emotion. Strong emotion. Delicate emotion. Even hidden emotion. There is an intimacy in Powers’ treatment of his subjects — from the expression in a person’s eyes to the palpable buzz of a Chinese marketplace. Powers’ work is alive and infused with a knowledge almost as deep as the artist’s passion.
With a B.F.A. from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Powers is a signature member of Oil Painters of America, and the founder of the Plein Air Painters of Chicago. Formerly an instructor at the Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, Powers teaches workshops around the country. His work is collected privately around the world, as well as by three museums: The Wengyuan Museum of Fine Art and the Shaoguan Museum of Fine Art, both in the Guandong Province of China; and the Academy Museum in Easton, Maryland.
In 2008, Powers won the Salon International Juried Competition Fine Art Connoisseur Publisher’s Award, as well as second place in the Plein Air Easton National Juried Competition. He received an Award of Excellence at The Oil Painters of America Annual Juried Exhibition, also in 2008. In February, Powers will make his debut in the Autry’s Masters of the American West with four new works. He is represented by Settlers West Gallery, Tucson, Arizona.
— Carter G. Walker
Michael Stano sculpts the ancient stories of nature with thin washes, shrouds of stains and pigmented varnish on bronze and into wood, adding and subtracting elements as he bends the shapes to an inner narrative. Using negative space to accentuate the missing parts, Stano twists beasts into the heart of man, creating his own version of the cavernous folktales of his youth.
Whether invoking the spirit of a fish or a wolf, Stano is true to the driving force of the animal and its part in our own histories. His haunting pieces pay homage to the strength of hunger as only the imagination of the ravenous can conjure.
Stano’s work is avidly collected by The MacDonald Corporation, Oakbrook, Illinois; University of Colorado at Denver, Colorado; The City of Greeley Convention Center, Greeley, Colorado; Richard and Leslie Schlesinger, Palm Beach, Florida; The North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, North Dakota; Great West Life Assurance Company, Denver, Colorado; Hyatt Hotel, Beaver Creek, Colorado; Mildred Caplitz and Bryan Bernholtz, Denver, Colorado; Don and Holly Grody, Denver, Colorado; Richard Morrison, Salina, Kansas; Torrey Pines Sheraton Hotel, La Jolla, California; Mrs. Jerry Garcia, San Francisco, California; Robin Williams, Marin County, California; Sammy Hagar, Los Angeles, California; Charles Hamblin, Denver, Colorado; Ginny Williams Foundation, Denver, Colorado; Spanish Peaks Lodge, Big Sky, Montana; and Progressive Insurance, Cleveland, Ohio.
His work is represented by Gallatin River Gallery, Big Sky, Montana; J. Cotter Gallery, Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado; and James Ratliff Gallery, Sedona, Arizona.
