In his second solo exhibition with David B. Smith Gallery, Colorado based artist Don Stinson continues to expand the conversation surrounding contemporary Western painting. An established and respected figure amongst Colorado artists and aficionados and critics of the American landscape tradition alike, Stinson’s panoramas of endless skies and sweeping fields serve as both detailed documentation of a changing landscape as well as commentary on a culture fixated on progress.

As technically masterful as it is conceptually nuanced, What Lies Between trains its attention to physical places and correlating psychological spaces that speckle the American West. In constant flux as technological advances and celebrated landmarks prioritize certain locations over others, human activity inevitably leaves a mark. Stinson’s romance with once pristine landscapes altered by human curiosity, expansion, and aspiration, works its way throughout each piece, meandering between towering wind turbines and around abandoned desert homes.

Spanning the main gallery and project room are eighteen new works of varying scale that ponder the space and substance between beginning and end, old and new, resource and potential. Landscape, synonymous with the society that inhabits it, whether characterized by everyday infrastructure or protected national park, indicates the land’s usage and thus, its cultural value. Invulnerable to passing fads and fancy, Stinson’s work serves as a steadfast symbol of the genre; himself the bearer of a timeworn tradition deeply-rooted in the cultural consciousness, yet still vibrant, innovative, and unmistakably contemporary.

Accompanying the exhibition, David B. Smith Gallery is pleased to publish a full-color exhibition catalogue for What Lies Between, featuring a foreword written by Karen McWhorter, Curator of Western American Art at the Whitney Museum of Western American Art, and essay by Amy Scott, Chief Curator at the Autry Museum of the American West.

Don Stinson is an acclaimed artist with works in numerous public and private collections, including the Denver Art Museum, The Phoenix Art Museum, the Art in Embassies Program in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the Whitney Museum of Western American Art, among others. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Colorado Council on the Arts Director's Grant, and the Best of Show at the Coors Art Exhibit at the National Western Stock Show. His work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions, with prominent showings at the Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming, the Coors Western Art Exhibit, Denver, Colorado, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado and Artist Space, New York. Stinson received a BFA from Colorado State University and an MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University.

Stinson was born in Amarillo, Texas, and he currently lives and works in Evergreen, Colorado.