The gallery is honored to exhibit new landscape paintings by American realist Willard Dixon, one of the nation’s most celebrated artists, known for capturing the undeniable beauty of the West with its grand and humble sprit. The oil paintings in the exhibition were created during 2019-2020, and they depict familiar California scenes, including Venice Beach, the Carmel coastline, Tomales Bay, sailing ships at Raccoon Straight, rolling Bay Area hills, and gentle nature scenes imbued with early evening light (his favorite).

Here is the artist’s personal statement:

With the perspective afforded as my practice of painting moves well into its fifth decade, I have occasion to reflect on what common spirit might be running through the work, underlying the different approaches and subject matter that have emerged over the years. What I perceive most clearly in the successful work is a sense of presence or aliveness, and a “rightness” of form, scale, and color. Somehow, through luck, hard work, or some combination of the two, I’ve been able to find and draw these qualities out of the paint. In my landscapes, that is achieved through a certain evocation of space and light. Through it all, I’ve learned to accept and enjoy the impossibility of having more than a momentary resting place before moving on to another attempt. I do appreciate more and more the way a painting, its spirit arising out of such humble materials, continues to rest silently on the wall, contemplating both itself and the viewer amidst the hurried buzz of our contemporary lives, offering a refuge and occasion for those desiring a deeper and more satisfying engagement of our attention.

(Willard Dixon)

The gallery is proud to premiere new paintings and works on paper from French-American artist Frédéric Choisel, who is visiting from his current home and studio in Paris. Choisel is inspired by history, mythology, poetry, and his daily observations of nature, and his dramatic and highly personal works hint at humanity’s psychological and spiritual longing.

New works include Alga, a series of five abstract works created with sumi ink, graphite, metallic pigments, and acrylic on Moulin de Larroque paper. This stunning series of monochromatic works is inspired by tangled seaweed along a threatened European coral reef.

Inextricable is an abstract series in oils that evokes memories of fisherman’s nets in the setting sun. Bridging nature and geometry, Pluie Sur Les Fleurs/Rain on Flowers is a vibrant impasto painting of multicolored layers with metal leaf that glistens, shimmers, and changes with shifting light and seasons.