The New Bedford Art Museum presents In the Landscape: Four Painters — Four Seasons on view through 1.16.2011. In the Landscape: 4 Painters — 4 Seasons is the result of setting four superb painters free to explore the cycle of seasons.
Curator David B. Boyce notes: “The painters participating in In The Landscape have been brought together because of their shared interests in landscape painting. They are also all New Englanders and while each has a connection to the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, that was mere coincidence, although landscape painting was a favorite subject of the Swain School painting faculty. Diane Cournoyer (spring), Ben Martinez (summer), Stephen Remick (winter) and Nancy Train Smith (autumn) were each assigned a season in painting, and they have produced work that honors brilliantly those four periods of the year.”
Artist’s Statement
Snow-cover unifies and distills. I found this to be helpful while re-grouping from a previous series.
I’m attracted to things built or left by others that really weren’t intended to be objects to contemplate. This started with a previous stonewall series (inspired by a Robert Frost poem) and branched off from there to woodpiles, abandoned cellar holes, surveyor’s ribbon…
These were made originally for utilitarian reasons (except for the occasional snowman) with time, labor, and thought spent creating them. However, they now evoke a deeper meaning when taken out of context either through time or viewpoint.
If, along with this new meaning they were visually striking, I felt a need to paint them, to repurpose them. To make people aware not only of the beauty and importance of the objects themselves but to empathize with similar experiences, imagined back stories, and the analogies they generate.
Along with these subjects there is simply the unavoidable beauty of a winter landscape that just needs to be painted.
Image:Stephen Remick, Backyard
New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant Street, New Bedford, MA 02740 508-961-3072 [email protected]
www.newbedfordartmuseum.org
