John Box, Sharon Hester & Keith Zudell – Landscapes Art Exhibition

2014 Landscapes Art Exhibition – MyArtContest.com

John Box – Colorado Springs, CO

Photography provides me with a vehicle for capturing the unique character of our surroundings. I have had a life-long passion for photography that began as I grew up in Wisconsin. The opportunity to take photography classes in high school led me to build a darkroom in my basement so I could process and print my own photos.

My work in photography continued in college where I majored in graphic arts and continued to refine my photography skills. Following college, I taught photography at the high school level and found great satisfaction in helping others discover photography as a creative outlet.

While in college, I had the privilege to go on a photo shoot with Ansel Adams who came to campus as a guest lecturer. Spending a day with Adams in the field had a significant impact on both my interest in photography and the approach that I have taken in my own work every since. While the techniques he demonstrated were helpful, what I learned most from him was patience. The patience he demonstrated as he made certain every condition was just right to produce the best possible photograph is an attribute that I have tried to emulate in my own work.

A majority of my work captures the architectural character of places where people live and work although I am always looking for scenes that are different and interesting. As I now live in Colorado, some of my most recent work also includes landscape photos. Over the past few years, I have expanded the scope of my work and now print, mat and frame my photographs for sale to those who see value in my work.

Sharon Hester – Perry, FL

Keith Zudell – Gallup, NM

I believe any work of art has beauty when the elements of the composition achieve a harmonic and structural unity. I strive to accomplish this by the brush strokes that I uses in the creation of the painting. I am not striving for photo-realism. My aim is to paint what I see as accurately as I can, and also to communicate an atmosphere of color, light and a timeless feel. I use thick heavy brush strokes to give breath and movement to each painting. Light is used to guide the viewers eye to elements of the painting. Pointing them to selected objects so they may see the common in a new or distinctive way. My struggle as an artist is to always go further in this pursuit, to enriches my work with a look of understood reality but still have a ambiguous element. So that the viewer might envision more than a single interpretation, not just literal or realistic but metaphoric or abstract.

Like all who might hold a brush in their hand, filled with color and promise, I simple want to create a reality that comes from nothing and takes the viewer somewhere, anywhere out of their normal everyday routine. Even if just for a moment, I want them to feel the color, light, and timelessness in my paintings.

I often work with thick and heavy brush strokes. I push the paint as much as brush the paint and try to breathe into and out of each moment as I work the surface canvas. Then, as I release my grasp on the brush and stand back, there is on rare occasions a brief and fleeting moment of not recognizing the canvas – as though someone else had just been holding that brush. When that happens, I know I am in that most creative state.

Is it clearly ambiguous? Will the viewer’s interpretations change as the light in the room affects the light and shadows in the piece? Will there be collectors of my work who never understand, but still are drawn to explore? Will people feel changed if only for a minute?

Then I have met my challenge.