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"Site Unseen: A Contemporary Look at Landscape"
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8/1/2005  ATLANTA — The Savannah College of Art and Design presents “Site Unseen: A Contemporary Look at Landscape,” an exhibition that revisits and redefines the traditional landscape painting, Aug. 1–Sept. 9, at the Savannah Gallery, 3096 Roswell Rd., in Buckhead. An opening reception will be held Thursday, Aug. 4, 6–8 p.m. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public, and all work is for sale."Site Unseen” plays with the notion of traditional landscape painting by featuring more than 30 paintings that create a rejuvenated, altered or personal history within the context of the landscape. Recognizable images are obscured, boundaries are blurred, and identities are uncovered in this exhibition. Artists whose work is featured in the exhibition include Michael Brown, a SCAD painting alumnus who is represented by Sarah Bain Gallery; Henry Dean, a SCAD professor of foundation studies; James Lavadour, represented by Cumberland Gallery; Stuart Shils, represented by Tibor De Nagy Gallery; and Hiro Yokose, represented by the Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago, Ill. Brown earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from SCAD in 1996. His paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and group shows, and his work is part of private collections of people such as Sir Elton John and Whoopi Goldberg. His abstract paintings use symbol and metaphor to restructure the vocabulary and language of artwork. He said, “The focus is not only to convey what something is on the surface, but equally important, to try to expose the structure that holds that surface understanding together.” Dean is a professor of foundation studies at SCAD in Savannah. He earned a M.F.A. degree from SCAD and a Master of Arts degree from the University of St. Andrews. His large-scale work varies from the traditional mixed media, oil on canvas and chalk on paper pieces to kinetic installations. Lavadour creates abstract landscapes inspired by mountainous northeastern Oregon, where he’s lived for most of his life. An avid hiker, Lavadour said he finds that this physical experience is converted into the kinetic act of painting. Lavadour's work reflects his intimate knowledge of the land and its dynamic permutations. Part Walla Walla Indian and a self-taught painter, Lavadour helped found the nonprofit Crow's Shadow Institute, which provides social, economic and educational opportunities to Native Americans through artistic development. His work in “Site Unseen” is composed of small separately painted canvases that present multiple views of the constantly changing panorama. Shils creates simple oil on primed paper or board paintings through virtuoso paint handling. He said he sees his work as an extended metaphor, a highly compressed meditation on form and light. Shils said he finds direct inspiration in working from nature, and his work features a tension between land and sky that he calls "the battle between heaven and earth," creating highly abstracted and atmospheric paintings. Shils has exhibited nationally, with solo shows at Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York City, the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and the National Academy of Design in New York City, among others. Yokose, born in Nagasaki, Japan, has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows throughout the United States, including New York City, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix and Seattle. Yokose's work draws from Romantic tradition and European landscape painting, and the rippling water and soft trees of his idealized scenes can be considered respites from the busy city surrounding his New York City studio. Yokose uses beeswax and oil paint, each medium applied in alternate layers, which lends a depth and radiance to his pieces. The final heavy layer of wax subtly abstracts the images, recreating the traditional landscape.
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