GO Paint! Chippewa Valley 2022

Confluence From Phoenix Park

Acrylic, 16 x 20 | $475

Juror’s Notes: 

Wonderful intuitive response to the landscape. There’s so much to look at in this painting. It is full of surprises too. 

Artist’s Statement: 

My painting is both realistic and abstract, on the elusive edge between there and not there. On first look, everything is in place, then all dissolves. I want realism and abstraction to take turns. I want a painting to be evocative of time and place, and overwhelming in abstract, structural logic. I look for a surprise, a drama,a different way of seeing. I try not to see anything for itself alone, but as part of a whole. In this context, my subjects take on meanings other than the accustomed ones. They are more than still life and landscape. They are comments on thinking and seeing.

Rod & Gun

Oil, 12 x 12  | $300

Juror’s Notes: 

Really fantastic sense of shape and composition. Also a wonderful gestural energy and sure footedness. 

Artist’s Statement: 

Joe has a BFA in Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1999) and a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania (2004). Joseph draws from a deep commitment to ecology and love of place. His work as a team member with Hargreaves Associates Landscape Architects included design on the London Olympic Park and landscape design projects in NYC; then as a Graduate School teacher for 4 years in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania he refined skills that he brought home to his Mid-Western roots. In 2006 he collaborated with New York-based Public Artist Mary Miss on a large-scale public art and landscape project at Arlington Sewage Treatment Plant in Arlington Virginia. 

In his home of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he works as project design coordinator for Next Step Energy, a renewable energy company, Joseph spends regular time as a member of a community garden and prairie enthusiast. It is here that his work has recently taken bloom. In 2013, he designed a pavilion that stands in the Eau Claire’s Forest St. Community Garden. In Fall Creek, Joe designed a new Butterfly Pavilion for Beaver Creek Reserve which will open in the spring of 2019. He has also directed, produced, and shot a documentary on native remnant prairies for The Prairie Enthusiasts. Joe was Artist in Residence at Christ Church Cathedral in Eau Claire from 2018-2019.  Joe is an award-winning painter and has exhibited widely in the Midwest.

Big Falls Morning 22

Watercolor, 22 x 28  | $750

Juror’s Notes: 

Really nice bold gestural movement and interplay between the elements of air, water, and rock. 

Artist’s Statement: 

Robert Barfknecht has been painting watercolors for some fifty years. He began to paint while living in Tuscany and has continued to sketch and paint all over the world while working as an engineer and manager. These days he summers on Lake Altoona in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and winters on Hypoluxo Island in Latana, Florida, painting outdoors (en plein air) whenever he can.

His work has enjoyed recognition and awards, including first prize at the first annual Eau Claire Plein Air Contest at Beaver Creek in 2015. His work is displayed at private and public spaces in Italy and around the U.S., including libraries and schools in Florida and Wisconsin. 

Bob participates in many exhibitions and has enjoyed several solo shows in Florida, as well as one at the L.E. Phillips Public Library in the Autumn of 2020. 

Anticipation

Acrylic, 12 x 16  | $500

Juror’s Notes: 

I think the imaginative qualities particularly in Anticipation are very interesting-also this painting has an engaging congestion. 

Artist’s Statement: 

I'm a senior artist, that found my passion after retirement. I love painting Wisconsin's nature where I enjoy trying out new techniques, often I paint at Eau Claire Senior Center. My medium is pencil ink, watercolor, acrylics, and oils. During Wisconsin cold winters I find warmth down in Florida, where I am able to keep my passion alive.

River Prairie Park Reflection

Water, Carbon, and Ink | $200

Juror’s Notes: 

Very engaging sense of volume and luminosity in these watercolors. The water feels wet. 

Chippewa River, Lake Street Bridge with Pablo Center

16 x 20 | $475

Artist’s Statement: 

My painting is both realistic and abstract, on the elusive edge between there and not there. On first look, everything is in place, then all dissolves. I want realism and abstraction to take turns. I want a painting to be evocative of time and place, and overwhelming in abstract, structural logic. I look for a surprise, a drama,a different way of seeing. I try not to see anything for itself alone, but as part of a whole. In this context, my subjects take on meanings other than the accustomed ones. They are more than still life and landscape. They are comments on thinking and seeing.

James Boyd Brent grew up in the United Kingdom. He studied printmaking at Ruskin University Cambridge and Central St. Martins, London. After finishing school in the U.K., he moved to Minnesota as a Fulbright Scholar in the early 1990s and receiving his MFA in printmaking at the University of Minnesota. Brent currently lives and works in Minneapolis/St Paul and is a Professor for the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. His creative and academic interests include the relationship between creativity and place, and all aspects of painting, drawing, printing, and studio culture. Brent’s studio practice centers on printmaking and painting, and his work has been exhibited and collected internationally. 

In 1985 she opened the Accola Gallery in Durand WI, where she continues to work and exhibit. She has studied with many influential artists which helped her establish her skills in watercolor, oil, and acrylic. Jean Accola founded the Fresh Art Tour in 1998 and the GO Paint! Plein Air painting event in 2013 and is now looking forward to years of “just painting”.