|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Ask any East Coast transplant to California what they miss most about the place they left behind and they are likely to say “fall.” Here in Northern California, we are fortunate to have discernable seasons with a sense of autumn provided by Japanese maple and black oak trees. But if you are longing to see settings with the brilliant panorama of colors that this season is best known for, make your way to Pamela Walsh Gallery in Palo Alto where the landscape paintings of New York artist Larry Horowitz are on view. This debut show, entitled “East Coast Echoes,” is on display through Nov. 27.
Walsh said that she has been familiar with Horowitz’s work for several decades and decided to offer him a solo show because of his dedicated fan base in this area, and in the hope of introducing him to a new audience. “East Coast Echoes” resonates with the nostalgic feelings many of us have for the East Coast, featuring the sensational colors of fall and reflecting on a fading American landscape,” she said. She said that she and Horowitz decided to expand the show from just New England scenes to the idea of “chasing fall” as the artist traveled from Canada to the Carolinas in order to document untouched places that are slowly disappearing.
Paintings like “Autumn Leaves Reflections” and “Vibrant Stream” certainly do capture quiet, pristine settings that might require hours of hiking to find. But once discovered, the reward is the quintessential autumn scene; leaves that have turned brilliant shades of gold, orange and red — nature’s technicolor wonder that is awe-inspiring and all too brief.
In an email interview with the artist, Horowitz explained his working method and what he looks for in a site. “When working en plein air there are hundreds of changing stimuli – clouds moving, the sun going in and out, someone can walk into a scene, anything is possible. A plein air painting for me is not about a moment in time but rather a short passage of time.”
Working in oils, pastels and watercolors, Horowitz said that he usually makes smaller sketches on site then refers to them as he makes his larger oil paintings in the studio. “The larger oils can take up to 100 hours to complete,” he said.
The viewer can get a sense of the time and craft that goes into a large landscape like “Rushing Waters.” A meandering stream carries the eye from the foreground deep into the scene where short, staccato strokes of color create the fall foliage backdrop. The sky above is a mottled blend of warm and cool colors, capturing the time of year when the sun is giving up its intensity.
Look carefully at the paintings and a strong sense of texture is apparent. Yes, the artist has used both a brush and palette knife, but there is something even more fundamental. These works are not created on canvas but on hemp. Horowitz said, “As an artist it is very easy to become complacent. I always want to place myself out of my comfort zone. Hemp is probably the hardest surface to paint on. It is rough, dynamic and unforgiving.”
In another effort to challenge himself, Horowitz has chosen not to use a neutral gesso for his ground but rather dark hues that he must work around and over in order to achieve the end goal color. In “Rushing Waters” the ground is a deep purple that underlays the entire scene. Walsh noted that executing a painting in this way requires great skill and patience. For Horowitz, it is a chance to be stimulated and “off balance.” “Sometimes I even let my 6-year-old grandson choose the ground colors for a painting. I love the sense of randomness.”
Horowitz is also capable of creating a perfectly smooth surface, as seen in “Southern Bayou.” The wispy reeds in the foreground situate the viewer as we follow a single vanishing point perspective of flowing water far into the distance. That warm glow of light and time just before sunset is rendered in soft pastel hues and is captured both in the sky and reflected on the water.
Horowitz is a master colorist and said that as a young artist he used to make pastel sticks for other artists such as Jennifer Bartlett, Willem de Kooning and his mentor, Wolf Kahn. “I have a special relationship, not just with color, but with the actual properties of each pigment. During the Renaissance aspiring artists started out in the studio of the master by grinding pigments into paint. I am a contemporary artist who sees color through the eyes of a young apprentice in the 1600s.”
Given his affinity for color and his predilection for challenging techniques, it is not surprising to learn that his life long influences have been the Old Masters. He cites specifically a work by Peter Paul Rubens that he saw in a museum in the late 1970s. “The painting depicts a landscape that has three different compositional elements: a daytime scene, a sunset, and a night scene. The painting holds as a cohesive whole and, to me, is one of the greatest landscapes of all time painted by someone who is famous for nudes.”
SLIDESHOW: “Majestic View,” oil on hemp by Larry Horowitz is featured as part of his solo show, “East Coast Echoes” at Pamela Walsh Gallery. Courtesy Larry Horowitz/Pamela Walsh Gallery. 
SLIDESHOW: Larry Horowitz’s painting “Southern Bayou,” center, is seen at the Pamela Walsh Gallery, with “Autumn Leaves Reflections” at left. Courtesy Larry Horowitz/Pamela Walsh Gallery. 
SLIDESHOW: “East Coast Echoes,” a solo show by painter Larry Horowitz, highlights scenes of bold fall color. Courtesy Larry Horowitz/Pamela Walsh Gallery.
In all of the paintings, Horowitz has evoked a profound and indelible sense of place. We have probably all encountered landscapes like the one shown in “Majestic View,” with its open fields, shining lake and gently sloping hills. They are sacred places worth seeing and preserving for future generations, and we all have our own way of capturing them in our memories. Horowitz says that he is inspired by what is left of the vanishing American landscape. “I feel that every artist has their own visual language. I hope my language speaks to the viewer and enriches the way they see the world.”
East Coast Echoes is on view through Nov., 27 at the Pamela Walsh Gallery, 540 Ramona St., Palo Alto. pamelawalshgallery.com.
