Yaqui Point Grand Canyon by K.L. McKenna.
Sedona, AZ: They arrived with vision and anticipation, three Woodstock, New York painters, bringing new eyes and fresh perspectives to the Museum of Northern Arizona’s 2007 Artist-in-Residence Program in Flagstaff. Painted Journeys on the Colorado Plateau is an exhibit of their 36 works (12 from each artist). The exhibit remains open through May 26, 2009.
From their homes in the Catskill Mountains, Judy Abbott, K.L. McKenna, and Eva van Rijn came to the Southwest seeking artistic challenge and outdoor adventures, en plein aire. During their three-week visit they got both, as they traveled throughout the region in search of subjects from Oak Creek Canyon to Canyonlands National Park and many places in between.
Museum Director Robert Breunig said, “In the year since their visit, these artists have created a large body of work dedicated to the deep space, architectural plateaus, and dramatic canyons—as well as the spirit—of the Colorado Plateau. We’re looking forward to choosing one painting per artist from this exhibit to add to the Museum’s permanent collection.”
“As early as the 1850s, Eastern artists began to look to the West in search of unpainted landscapes,” states MNA Curator of Fine Art Alan Petersen. “At that time landscape painting was a vehicle for the revelation and celebration of the Divine in nature. Painters of that period sought to illustrate their vision with rich color and breathtaking atmospheric spaces for a receptive audience, eager for new subjects completely unlike the often painted, ancient forested landscapes of the East.”
Among the Eastern artists looking to the West were the painters associated with the Hudson River School of New York. The Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains of New York have been a source of artistic inspiration and innovation since the early nineteenth century, when the region came to prominence through art that established American values and attitudes toward the natural world. And so, the art of New York painters Abbott, McKenna, and van Rijn represents a contemporary journey in the tradition of the earlier Hudson River Valley artists, but with three contrasting painting styles.
