Elemental Solitude exhibitiion

Elemental Solitude: The Landscapes of Clyde Aspevig

August 3 - October 23, 2005

"Elemental Solitude:  The Landscapes of Clyde Aspevig"

There is more to the landscape paintings of Clyde Aspevig than meets the eye. Though they are deceptively easy to approach, they are meant to be savored. From the majestic to the mundane, these lovely visions capture much beyond fleeting moments of earthly splendor. The enticing beauty of nature outlasts initial admiration to reveal layers of profound meaning. As the viewer continues to examine these canvases, they quietly betray their nature as the language of choice for a complex artist who is dedicated to the advocacy of a vanishing environment.

The exhibition, Elemental Solitude: The Landscapes of Clyde Aspevig, explores the artist's devotion to this mission through works that demonstrate a strong diversity of artistic influence and an intense personal investment. While not a retrospective, the exhibition is alive with images that are products of a lifetime of toil and dedication. For those of us not fortunate enough to have one of these paintings above the mantle, this catalogue features works that provide a lasting opportunity to gain greater understanding of this artist and his art.

Yet, Clyde Aspevig is more than just an artist with a politically correct agenda. He desires to instill in his viewers a sense of awe for nature, thereby compelling them to respect and preserve it. His recent abandonment of his popular mountain lake scenes evinces his aversion to being trendy and his dedication to his mission. Even still, his name has become nearly synonymous with ‘western landscape'. To those who know him, that name invokes respect and admiration for his undisputed talent, obvious intellect, and absolute adherence to his principles. In sum, he is an artist at the ever-rising pinnacle of his career, who is probably one of the most collected landscape painters in the country and certainly one of the most respected by fellow artists and art historians alike.

The personal characteristics of the artist are elements that infuse his work with a truth beyond its sparkle, separating Aspevig's paintings from the legions of pretty, sweet, bucolic landscapes that flood the market, fooling many would-be collectors. Those who really look beneath the surface will discover a strong work ethic, an insatiable study of art history, and an earnest observation of the world around him. These elements fortify his talent and strengthen his sincere message on the environment.

Born and raised on a farm, Aspevig gained an early respect for the land. The local landscape inspired him during his youth to make sophisticated scribbles of what he saw. By age 10, he was taking lessons and working in oil paints. His parents heartily encouraged him to continue his exploration of art and supplied piano lessons as well, until his father died two years later. The sudden collapse of his childhood and premature acceptance of adult responsibilities forged a young man of discipline and perspicacity. Meanwhile, painting provided a sanctuary for spiritual solitude.

Aspevig entered Eastern Montana College in Billings, majoring in art education. Even there he was adamant about painting in the traditional manner, rather than exploring the pervasive abstraction and modernity with the rest of his peers. Although he had to work his way through college as a construction worker, he was able to complete a few artistic commissions. He graduated in 1976 and started teaching middle school in Oregon. Soon he realized that his calling was to be an artist, not an art teacher. Shortly thereafter, he became a full-time artist and never looked back.

Aspevig credits much of his artistic development and success to an unmitigated love for art that leads him to explore the great museums of the world and to devour every page in his large library on artistic movements and their champions. He is quick to point out some of his favorites, but the list he gives is neither short nor complete. His protracted study frequently leads him to discover new favorites, as well as techniques and ideas that he selectively incorporates into his method.

Indeed, he can rightfully credit his success, if not his brilliance as a painter, to such diligent research. Where Aspevig thrives (and where others fall short) is learning from the methods of the past, then judiciously applying them to his own body of knowledge and to a work in progress, rather than allowing a technique to impose upon his work and to subvert its individuality. In this way, he continues to experiment and to develop a unique style that fervently resists slipping into stylistic apprenticeship and slavish imitation of others.

In addition to Aspevig's character, his work as well has much to reveal from beneath the surface. Aspevig's painting has been described in terms such as ‘representational,' ‘traditional,' ‘plein-air,' ‘impressionist,' ‘expressionist,' ‘realist,' ‘pointillist,' and even ‘abstract'. Each of these is as accurate as it is imprecise. The reason is this: In the greatest gesture of a truly great artist, Aspevig subordinates his ego and technique to the image at hand. By letting the content dictate the method of application, he does not allow the paint to overwhelm the painting. This is the mark of a mature painter - one who is so comfortable in his abilities that he allows them to create the art unfettered by the artist.

This is not to say that he has no recognizable style. Rather, his style has been developed by astutely employing the tools and techniques known to him. No stroke is haphazard; it has to mean something. And Aspevig is an artist who paints what he means. When it is appropriate to use pointillist techniques, he does so. When the mood of the landscape cries out for a more psychological expressiveness, Aspevig draws on the dark atmospheres of the work of Russian landscape painter Isaak Levitan or Austrian expressionist Egon Scheile. When a pale morning sky requires fragile recreation, Aspevig turns to the American Luminists or the Impressionist forefathers. Ultimately, Aspevig's style presents itself as a sensitive amalgam of what the subject necessitates and what the artist contributes. Through it all, expressive surfaces, impressive light, and reverent naturalism merge to yield paintings infused with experience and knowledge, augmented by emotion.

In this manner, Aspevig can create a world where the pointillist sky, expressionist foreground and abstract shrubbery merge to create an image of subtle irregularity. Such randomness reflects the elemental truth of nature and gives a sense of animation. For, as Aspevig points out, the eye does not see every blade of grass when we look at a meadow. Instead, we see colors and shapes that blend to form something we understand to be grass. So, with energetic strokes, Aspevig suggests such forms, instead of "burdening the viewer with meaningless detail, " as he puts it. He further asserts that these subtle abstractions of nature are more accurate, literally and figuratively. Since a representational painting is merely the sum of abstractions, he relies on the viewer to assign order to the abstractions as a means of grasping some essential truths about the subject painted. In so doing, he fools the viewer into believing his work is realism. Indeed, it would be easy for him to replicate nature, to illustrate precisely what he sees. But he does not do this. To him, the death of a representational painting is when it is rendered, not expressed.

So, Aspevig channels nature. Painting rapidly en plein air, for which he is well known, forces an immediate intimacy with nature. In the open air, he quickly records nature's transient moments - billowing clouds, ethereal shadows, and waning light - though Aspevig does not hesitate to change the composition of what he sees. While his plein-air studies are completed paintings in their own right, they primarily exist as a library of spontaneous experiences with nature. They are a critical part of experimenting with techniques and topographies. Outside, he can sketch general relationships among forms and not be burdened with the details. There he is interested in capturing the effects of light. It is back in his studio that he can take the painting to the next level intellectually and technically.

As Aspevig describes it, he wants both his technique and his viewers to transcend the surface of the painting - to see beneath the layers of texture and beyond the beauty of the images. The beauty of nature is merely a vehicle to explore more deeply his philosophy of man and nature. For this reason Aspevig has devoted his career to landscape painting. Rarely do animals or humans occur in his landscapes, and when they do, they have been subdued into numerous, small, suggestive masses. They become part of the topography, and perhaps that is one lesson the artist intends.

Within a painting, a figure rendered too precisely or centrally dominates the image. The viewer's eye will instantly gravitate toward that figure and so neglect a more profound study of the elements around it. Aspevig contends that in a similar fashion, humanity is continually trying to assert mastery over nature. He likens this to visiting the Grand Canyon, where nearly every visitor shouts his or her name into the chasm below. Much like when approaching one of his paintings, he would prefer that we stand back and silently allow ourselves to be absorbed into its mystery and majesty than to try to force ourselves upon it.

Aspevig is no hypocrite in this. He once spent thirty-six days alone in nature, alone with nature. During this time, he became an incisive observer of the world around him. He discovered the profound and elemental solitude of nature. After a while, the natural world began to reveal itself more fully. It provoked inquisition. It is the deep emotional response that he felt in solitude with these elements that he tries to capture each time he creates a painting. A pure landscape will isolate a viewer within it, and the viewer is the beginning of the next layer of painting. So Aspevig's work attempts to envelope the viewer as a lone figure in the landscape, making every effort to provoke a profound sensory experience, allowing us to become one with nature. His paintings encourage our imaginations to take us to the next step, and in so doing we become part of the landscape itself. There, Aspevig challenges us to feel the wind and smell the grasses - to walk into the mountains and discover something for ourselves.

This pleasant persuasiveness is refreshing from someone who could easily recite the travesties inflicted upon the Earth by humans. Rather than boorishly proselytizing his personal convictions, he gently encourages us to become aware that we, too, somehow share these values. Nature and her landscapes are universally alluring; every person is a part of nature, so everyone can relate to it if they allow themselves. Aspevig's work speaks to this eternal aspect. For him, nature exists simultaneously in the past, present, and future and so is full of symbols, metaphors and prophesies. Although we inhabit the land, nature prevails.

Always motivated by his reverence for the environment, and by attainment of the complete aesthetic, Aspevig's own lifestyle cannot be found in contradiction. He and his wife, fellow artist Carol Guzman, live in a small home made entirely of recycled materials. They have continuously bought parcels of land adjacent to their own as they became available, and in so doing have saved them from further development. Instead, they have created a private nature preserve with a small creek running below their domicile, where wild geese and mule deer harbor in the winter. Above the house a large bluff rises, slightly obscuring a view of the Crazy Mountains. Each day, Clyde and Carol walk across their acreage in their own process of exploring the land in minute detail; they call this "land snorkeling". This is a fitting pastime for a landscape artist and his wife, a trompe l'oeil painter. Together, they treasure their discoveries from overturned rocks and plucked flowers; and, each day they ponder these elements of nature in solitude with their respective work.

So, this master of the incomparable view is also disciple to the land - and the disciple acutely feels the impending loss of his teacher. Fear for the vanishing countryside impels the urgency and unabashed intensity with which he approaches each painting, feverishly recording what remains. His paintings are moments caught in time and examined for all of the visual, spiritual and intellectual qualities that can be associated with them. For him, these landscapes merit preservation in perpetuity, in both art and society.

Clyde Aspevig continues to search for the ultimate inspiration. He seeks a purity and harmony between man and nature. For him, this will manifest itself in the ultimate landscape painting: a perfectly compelling reflection and invitation to all. Until then, he leaves us to discover our own perfect landscape somewhere in the elemental solitude of our own nature.