One Idea, Two Approaches

Sometimes I think the Northwest Corner is populated entirely by landscape painters. You see them on roadsides and in fields — if, of course, they are plein-air, that rather high falutin’ term for going outside and painting what you see — or you see their work, plein-air or not, in galleries, shops, restaurants, even real estate offices.

 Now in the Tremaine Gallery at The Hotchkiss School you can see a show from two extremely different landscape artists:  Emily Buchanan and Titus Welliver. Where Buchanan paints only plein-air, Welliver determinedly paints from memory in his studio.  Where Buchanan’s subjects in this show are recognizably local, Welliver’s aren’t. The one is traditional, the other more abstract.

Buchanan is a hard worker.  Her list of shows is long indeed, and she is represented by at least three galleries in New York City, Bedford, NY, and Atlanta, GA. And she is a shrewd marketer of her work: Her paintings are almost always presented in simple but substantial gold-painted frames that give her pictures a feeling of importance. And the prices, ranging from $1,500 to $7,500, can seem important, too.

In her best paintings, Buchanan transcends her obvious technical skill and achieves a moment of natural emotion caught on canvas.  I especially like “Along the Rail Trailâ€� with its reflections in water and “Reflections,â€� with the water mirroring irises along the bank.  “Spring in Coltsfoot Valleyâ€� is full of wonderful yellows and blues, almost like Provence.  But my favorites, I think, are the small “Hay Balesâ€� and two paintings of New England seaside dunes, both framed in simple ebony-colored frames.

One aspect of these paintings I don’t understand:  The sky is consistently pink and blue in almost every work.  A Hotchkiss art student sprawled on the floor making notes on her MacBook wondered along with me how this could be.

Titus Welliver’s work is a different kettle of fish.  Son of the famous and late landscape painter, Neil Welliver, he began art training in his teens but gave it up for acting.  He has appeared in many films, on stage and on television; but he is best known as Silas Adams, a semi-regular character on the wonderful, foul-mouthed HBO series, “Deadwood.â€�

When Welliver finally took up painting again, he discovered — with help from critics — that he was most comfortable and best at painting nature.  The results are vaguely abstract and on first viewing seem flat, almost like Japanese woodcuts or children’s coloring books. But that is deceptive.  His best work is dense, with depth and barely contained energy.     

Alas, I don’t think this show features Welliver’s best. The pictures are mostly rendered in Day-Glo acrylic colors on mostly small canvases that are unframed but stretched over unseen wood  several inches thick.

To see what Welliver at his best can do, however, just look at “Heavy Snow Over Open River,â€� one of the two largest and the most expensive pictures in the show.  The wonderfully textured flakes nearly obscure the ghostly water in this moody, powerful piece. Like Buchanan, Welliver’s prices run from $1,500 to $7,500.

“Two Approaches to Landscapeâ€� continues at the Hotchkiss Tremaine Gallery through Oct. 18.  An opening reception with the artists is scheduled Saturday, Sept. 19, from 4 to 6 p.m.