The works of Woody Gwyn have for many years brought joy to those fortunate enough to view his paintings of New Mexico high desert landscapes, stunning seascapes, or apple orchards in full bloom. Gwyn's paintings are a testament to extraordinary luminosity, purity of color, and meticulous detail, capturing the essence of clarity itself. His work serves as a refreshing reminder of the exhilarating lucidity of nature.

Each piece begins, as Gwyn describes, “out in the field” with plein air sketches and watercolors, directly recording his observations and impressions on site. In his studio, these preliminary works evolve, as Gwyn’s brushstrokes translate his reverence for the world into new perspectives on his canvases, panels, and paper. Gwyn’s landscapes read as meticulously detailed and clear-eyed elucidations of unexpected visual synergies between what might traditionally be thought of as the majestic and the ordinary in landscape.

In each of these works there is profound joy at the hand of an artist who blends the quotidian and nature’s utter magnificence into an ineluctable visual magic. Each tiny stone on the side of a hill, every whitecap on a wave, every blossom on an apple tree, all are painstakingly painted, one by one by Gwyn, attaining the status of iconography of a world whose unmitigated truth is itself shown in a Gwyn painting to be a thing of profound beauty. One of the key aspects of Gwyn’s approach is his passionate engagement with the minutest of details present in his subjects, portraying each compositional element with affectionate reverence and imbuing the work with a magnetism that pulls the viewer toward a new appreciation of the enchantment offered by those elements.

Gwyn’s paintings have long been regarded for their capacity to foster a meditative sense of grace and impart a feeling of peace and equanimity with their contemplation of simple beauty possible from the aesthetic parity he portrays in nature between the grand and the ordinary. In this exhibition, special regard is given to new cutting-edge research about this aspect of art suggesting its therapeutic benefit to human health and well-being. Whether it is the serenity and beauty of the paintings that relaxes the mind and reduces blood pressure or the fascination with the minute details and crystalline light that stimulates the mind to strengthen cognition, there is reason to believe from contemporary scientific research, as the catalog accompanying the exhibition considers, that experiencing a Woody Gwyn painting in one’s life can enhance it.

Woody Gwyn, born in San Antonio, Texas in 1944, received his arts education from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1974, he relocated to New Mexico, discovering an awe-inspiring sense of space and scale that provided the perfect backdrop for his artistic endeavors. For fifty years, Gwyn’s work has been showcased in a wide array of premiere galleries and exhibited in national and international museums, including the Tel Aviv Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel; le Centre Nationale des Arts Plastiques in Paris, France; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery of George Washington University in Washington, DC; and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. His work is also in numerous private collections around the nation. Gwyn was the 2010 recipient of New Mexico’s highest artistic honor, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts for Painting.