"I think many of us have had the experience of a stab of joy and longing when looking at nature; I certainly have and I’m trying to recapture those moments in my paintings... the ever-changing subject is the great challenge of landscape painting."
Swover Creek II (Detail), 8.75" x 12.5", Oil On Panel
"When painting outdoors I feel a manic urgency to absorb as much information as I can as quickly as possible — a kind of hyper-concentration — and I suppose this results in a kind of vitality in the painting.
In the studio, freshness is not a big priority for me. I think of plein air paintings as having the 'freshness of youth' while studio paintings can have a more mature kind of beauty born from slow consideration."
- Ann Lofquist
July Streambed, 32" x 58", Oil On Canvas
July Streambed, 32" x 58", Oil On Canvas
New England painter Ann Lofquist continues her exploration of the pastoral American landscape in a new series of large canvases. New England Life documents the very real relationship between contemporary reality and those seemingly mythical settings depicted in famous 19th-century plein air paintings by George Innes and others.
The difference made by 150 years is subtle but telling. Lofquist's fluid brushstroke depicts many of the same rivers, streams and country settings that Innes painted (most are near Lofquist’s home in Brunswick, Maine). But Lofquist’s skein of paint and omniscient viewpoint comes from abstract and action painting, and her serene settings seem believable, yet somehow unattainable. in the 21st century. More surprising, Lofquist’s scenes occasionally include a solitary person, small in scale and unobtrusively sitting or standing amidst the motif. These figures are so quiet and camouflaged they become yet another element in the complex pattern of trees, rocks and hillsides depicted.
In the quietude of these scenes, one senses that nature’s force has briefly paused. Lofquist’s depiction of calm detachment and remove from everyday cares revives and revises the American romantic tradition which seeks spiritual connection and solace from nature.
Lofquist’s painterly approach remains traditional and painstaking. She initially paints small canvases directly on-site. These plein air studies inspire Lofquist’s large studio paintings without benefit of windows for the rural vistas she details. Lofquist uses detail to describe the setting, with its specific season, mood, weather, and time of day.
In Snow over Brunswick, for example, the frozen atmosphere and remote beauty are so refined one can almost feel the bitter cold of a Northeast winter. A small Maine village nestles amidst snow-covered trees, eliciting an emotional response in the viewer through a shared folklore. For Lofquist, "these encounters with nature... strive to capture the immediacy and poignancy of the moment of discovery."
Ann Lofquist, received her Masters of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University in 1990. She has received many fellowships and awards and was included in a major review of contemporary landscape painters, The Artist and the American Landscape, by John Driscoll.
“When I choose a subject for plein air, I am responding to an immediate connection with a certain landscape at a certain time of day at a certain season. And by some mysterious alchemy my heart leaps. This stab of joy includes an element of longing and eventual loss that makes it more poignant: a realization of the universal truth ‘This too shall pass’...”
- Ann Lofquist
Gross McCleaf is delighted to present a new series of landscape paintings by Ann Lofquist in Passing Observations. Lofquist’s remarkable skill and eye for detail, beauty and serenity are on full display in this new collection of both small-scale plein air paintings, and larger studio works.
Women have been the cornerstone of operations and exhibitions at Gross McCleaf since Estelle Shane Gross opened her gallery in 1970 on the second floor of 1713 Walnut Street. Over 50 years later, Gross McCleaf is commemorating its rich history during (re)Focus 2024, a citywide festival celebrating women-identified and BIPOC artists.
Fortitude at 50: A Resilient Five Decades at Gross McCleaf Gallery features Martha Armstrong, Jan Baltzell, Joan Becker, Elizabeth Geiger, Eileen Goodman, Penelope Harris, Heidi Leitzke, Bertha Leonard, Ying Li, Ann Lofquist, Chelsey Luster, Bethann Parker, Nicole Parker, Jane Piper, Kimi Pryor, Mary Putman, Celia Reisman, Val Rossman, Mickayel Thurin, Leigh Werrell, and Lauren Whearty with self-portraits, dreamy narratives and formally complex still-life and landscape paintings. The works suggest a deep reflection of the self and a strong point of view conveyed through their distinct subjects and styles. The exhibition represents women artists in all stages of their careers who have helped shape the Gross McCleaf legacy and brand focus toward what Sharon Ewing, former owner and director, refers to as “painterly realism” – representation in painted form.
Long before recorded history, humans identified divinity in the natural world. Across the globe, cave paintings and petroglyphs represent the land, the animals and the supernatural. Prehistoric burial mounds and henges of Northern Europe align with equinoxes and solstices. At Newgrange in Ireland, decorated stone carvings record the phases of the moon and depict rays emerging over the horizon at sunrise. Contemporary viewers can only infer the exact meanings of these monumental relics, etched with waves, spirals and diamonds juxtaposed with recognizable imagery.
As contemporary innovation, architecture, technology and design increasingly position each person as the master of their own exclusive universe, the artists in Concerning The Spiritual In Landscape have humbly venerated the life-giving light, ever-present matter and perpetual cycles of nature that bring forth all things.
In 2019, Ann Lofquist returned to her beloved New England after 12 years in Southern California. She had lived in Maine for 20 years and her atmospheric paintings of fields, farms, and streams were uniquely recognizable. The landscape had changed while she was away, however. “I often revisit my favorite vistas and upon returning to New England, I was struck by how much they had changed during my 12-year absence,” she explains. “For the most part, the changes were (from my point of view) for the worse. Favorite trees had been felled, creeks were now choked by invasive knotweed and old dairy farms had been abandoned and the pastures were overgrown.”
Friends invited her to their central Shenandoah Valley cabin to do some plein air painting. “I fell in love with the landscape,” she says. “It is far more open than that in New England, and the sycamore trees with their luminous, white bark dominate the pastures. I returned several times during the fall and winter of 2020-21. During the winter I do my plein air painting from my car (the panel is balanced on the steering wheel and my palette is to my right on the passenger seat.) In order to paint the streams I loved, I had to find unobstructed views from bridges where I could park without disrupting traffic."
