August’s “Artist Drop” at Gallery MAR

August 24th, 2024

This month, we’re excited to continue our summer series “Artist Drops.” In this August’s curated selection of fresh artwork, we’re featuring the latest artwork from Gallery MAR artists Michael Kessler, James Penfield, and Shawna Moore.

In honor of our third and final summer “Artist Drop,” we asked these three beloved Gallery MAR artists about their latest work, inspiration, and what they love the most about their fellow “Artist Drop” artists’ work. We hope you enjoy learning more about these works below, and be sure to see them in person in the gallery today.

MICHAEL KESSLER

Michael Kessler’s artwork blends organic forms with abstract expressionism. His style is marked by rich textures, intricate layers, and earthy color palettes, creating visually captivating pieces. Each work reflects a deep connection to nature, exploring the harmony between natural patterns and artistic expression.

“Rosemary,” by Michael Kessler

Gallery MAR: What can our collectors expect from your latest work?

Michael Kessler: New COLOR combinations are happening in my latest work. A narrow yet diverse range of hues, mostly on the cool side of the spectrum, have grasped my attention as never before. I’m orchestrating blues, greens, and violets together with warm and cool shades of grey. These fresh color fields pulsate with an energetic, yet slightly subdued, vibration. The forest continues to be my implied subject as always; however, these new groves are multi-colored.

Gallery MAR: What have you been most inspired by of late?

Michael Kessler: I’d say my experiences fly fishing in the lakes and rivers of the Colorado Plateau are increasingly the source of inspiration. Immersive and intense moments alone in the wild backcountry fuel my vision.

Gallery MAR: What in particular do you feel stands out about this new work?

Michael Kessler: I’ve always shied away from polychrome compositions in favor of neutral color fields, but lately I’ve been totally fascinated by these subtle shifts. All of these colors I’m playing with spring up from grey.

Gallery MAR: What do you love about your fellow “August Artist Drop” artists’ work?

Michael Kessler: I’ve been friends with Shawna Moore for decades. She is a true artist with an authentic love of Art and Nature. Her work is sublime and innovative. Shawna’s ability and determination to paint water with wax is remarkable indeed. No one makes paintings quite like her!

James Penfield exhibits a refreshingly playful approach to art making. His casual ability to represent a wide array of animals with wild and unusual color patches is fun to experience. This world could use more of his lighthearted and humorous content.

SHAWNA MOORE

Shawna Moore is renowned for her luminous encaustic paintings, inspired by nature’s most powerful and serene elements. Her unique style evokes a serene, ethereal quality, drawing viewers into a world of abstract beauty and tranquil reflection.

“Dream Time,” by Shawna Moore

Gallery MAR: What can our collectors expect from your latest work?

Shawna Moore: This new work is purely seasonal. Each piece was made after I returned from a seven month “surfbatical.” I traveled and surfed in Costa Rica, Hawaii, and Panama. Now back in Montana, I wake each day watching the morning breeze sweep across Whitefish Lake. Most days I also witness the colorful sunset with Lion Mtn casting shadows on the water. The paintings reflect my relationship to water and place and my love of exploration in life and art.

Gallery MAR: What in particular do you feel stands out about this new work?

Shawna Moore: I am really trying to break my habits in regards to color. I obviously love blue, but what other colors do you see in water? Almost all of them! The possibilities are endless.

Gallery MAR: What do you love about your fellow “August Artist Drop” artists’ work?

Shawna Moore: Both of these artists explore the landscape in such unique ways. We all flirt with abstraction in certain ways, yet the artwork ultimately speaks to nature and the raw act of painting and the experience of being a working artist.

Gallery MAR: Is there anything else you would like for our collectors to know about this fresh work?

Shawna Moore: The artist drops at Gallery MAR help me offer up work for collectors without a full disruption in my process in the studio. It is an exciting opportunity to share my artistry with Park City and beyond!

JAMES PENFIELD

James Penfield’s artwork features loose, painterly, gestural abstractions that capture the essence of Western mountains, animals, and cowboys. His dynamic brushstrokes and vibrant colors convey the rugged beauty and spirit of the West, creating evocative and expressive pieces that celebrate this iconic landscape and its inhabitants.

Left to right: James Penfield, “Leatherbound,” mixed media, 40″ x 30″ | James Penfield, “Earthbound Hellion,” mixed media, 24″ x 30″ | James Penfield, “There Art Levels,” mixed media, 40″ x 30″

Gallery MAR: What can our collectors expect from your latest work?

James Penfield: This set of work corresponds to my life after having kids. My wife and I now have amazing twin boys Soren and Laszlo. My life has changed in a way that’s almost incomprehensible to my former self, so it’s been a massive adjustment countered by a massive amount of growth and adapting. This has definitely influenced my work methods and technique.

My life has gone from almost too-free to a much more structured, conscious, patient approach to creating. I’m discovering that this way of working is altering the images I make, so that they can each stand on their own, fully developed. This entails more time spent with the piece and less action. Truly it’s putting more soul into the piece, so it can serve as a piece of experience, like a pocket of vitality of life or experience incarnate.

These aspects of the work create the consistency of the series, not any particular color or formal element. This creates a unity, a whole, that’s perceived. It’s like a great trip where you lose yourself in an experience of the topography of the image and the creator of the image and can only live as if in a dream in the present.

Gallery MAR: What have you been most inspired by of late?

James Penfield: I’m finding deeper purpose through these depictions of the West. I’ve been experimenting with new color palettes, like vermilion and a new array of blues. I’m finding the “grey” areas of the color spectrum that I was unaware of previously. I’ve been researching art history that I’ve missed in the past. Particularly I’ve been looking at the era of the “Golden Age of Illustration” and Howard Pyle. I think my work is better defined these days as an Illustrative fine art painting style. I was never formally trained in painting, but I was formally trained in intaglio printmaking and take a lot of my color theory from that medium.

Gallery MAR: What in particular do you feel stands out about this new work?

James Penfield: I looked into intention a lot with this work – Focusing on the power behind having intention versus not when painting loosely. I believe the personal experience is necessary because it lets you react to a real memory versus copying an image. That process is key to conveying a subject and key in how the viewer experiences the piece.

Gallery MAR: What do you love about your fellow “August Artist Drop” artists’ work?

James Penfield: I love the bold vertical work of Michael Kessler. The formal juxtapositions within his work show me different boundaries that can be pushed further and how they integrate. It’s clean, fresh looking work that really captures impressions I know I have stored in my memory.

I love the bold, sensuous work of Shawna Moore. It’s the type of work I can be absorbed by while in its presence. It’s individual, yet all-inclusive, like it’s encapsulating your perceptual powers. It makes me think of familiarity and home, of feeling centered and grounded yet free.

Written by Veronica Vale and Gallery MAR artists Michael Kessler, Shawna Moore, and James Penfield