"The land, to me, is just a bucket of worms. It's squirming with demanding detail, arresting your vision all over the place."
Nationally renowned landscape artist Joellyn Duesberry says she experiences a visceral reaction when she looks at natural terrain. In her solo exhibit Elevated Perspective: Paintings by Joellyn Duesberry, opening this week at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the viewer sees the growth of that reaction during a career that spans 42 years and three continents.
"I prefer to call this kind of show a survey," says museum director Blake Milteer to Duesberry during a walk-through of the exhibit space, "rather than a retrospective, because, um ... you're still here."
"Survey" is an apt term, evoking both the breadth of the show and the way Duesberry, a part-time Colorado resident, interprets the natural world. Like that of a surveyor, her approach owes everything to layers: layers of paint on the canvas, gradations of rock and earth in the landscapes she paints, and, most importantly, her technique of mining the surface and depth of the composition for abstract geometric forms.
"Your paintings work like strata in the earth. And in some of the paintings, you see actual strata," says Milteer, pointing to a Colorado landscape leaning against the wall. "You see it, certainly, in the fantastic quarry paintings from Maine, and the bogs — you talk about these layers of history in a bog, right, so it plays out both metaphorically and physically."
Milteer speaks from a deep familiarity with Duesberry and her work, having begun preparations for Elevated Perspective immediately following the FAC expansion in 2007. Duesberry, for her part, says the experience of seeing her oeuvre through Milteer's eyes as exhibit curator — watching him plan how he will interpret her paintings for the public — has challenged her process.
She has always worked en plein air, citing the focus and immediacy it imposes, and on a large scale. But the insight she has gained from Elevated Perspective has enabled her to move her painting indoors, drawing on the same inspiration she enjoyed outdoors — but on even bigger canvases. Her most recent work, a 15-foot bog view she calls "the most important painting of my career," signals a new direction for her as an artist.
"Blake has seen the personal roots, has seen the accretion over time of motifs that I've used over and over and over again, but I'm not aware of," she says. "What he's done is give me a sense of the wholeness, or at least the continuum, of a whole life in paint, that I didn't have before. Astonishing. I want to launch another chapter based on what I've learned."
Related Stories
-
Art and about
Jun 30, 2011 -
A breath of fresh air
Jun 30, 2011 -
Basic elements
Jun 30, 2011 -
Long story short
Jun 30, 2011
Speaking of...
-
FAC's 2019-2020 theater season is studded with big titles and regional premieres
Mar 29, 2019 -
The FAC has the perfect opportunity to take action, and find cause for laughter
Oct 31, 2018 -
FAC closes mainstage season with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
May 23, 2018 -
Baseera Khan shines as an exploration of personal history, current events, spirituality and consumerism
May 9, 2018 -
Fun Home makes regional premiere at Fine Arts Center
Mar 28, 2018 -
The Wailers at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center show preview
Jan 17, 2018 - More »
Inspiration meet s fabrication for an engineer turned artist
Latest in Visual Arts
Readers also liked…
-
How costume company ELOPE’s design team makes magic happen
The Cut
- Nov 22, 2017
-
Front Range Open Studios Tour marks seventh year this weekend
- Sep 6, 2017
-
Nicholas Heilig puts brush to canvas at stage-side
- Jan 2, 2019
More by Claire Swinford
-
A Nickel and a Nail: Hobo Two-Point-Oh
- Jan 25, 2013
-
Try to remember
The start of the FAC's second stage theater (and season), Make Sure It's Me, treats war casualties as a matter of community, not policy.
- Sep 12, 2012
-
Rock and roll
Locals bring pedal-powered melody to downtown.
- Aug 15, 2012
- More »
Contact
Colorado Springs Independent
- 235 S. Nevada Ave.
- Colorado Springs, CO 80903
- (719) 577-4545
The Paper
