Mountain Visions
Jul 1, 2010 - Aug 28, 2010, ArtXChange Gallery, Seattle
ArtXChange Gallery, 512 First Ave South, Seattle WA 98104 USA {map} p: 206.839.0377, Email, Web site
Inspired by craggy precipices, rolling mists, and the lush foliage of northwest Vietnam, Donald Cole presents a series of Mountain Visions, distilled and come to life through multiple approaches to process and materials. In the winter of 2009, Cole journeyed to the mountains of Vietnam north of Hanoi, just below China. On the wandering trails of Sapa the artist made drawings in his sketchbook inspired both by the vistas before him and a longstanding love for mountain landscapes depicted in traditional Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese art.
Cole’s signature bright colors and weathered surfaces are interspersed throughout the series, but each painting is purposefully a technical departure from the next, alluding to the artist’s desire to continually push his own boundaries. In richly textured large-scale canvases, mixed-media collages, and delicate ink paintings on the surface of matchboxes, Cole playfully explores the possibilities of materials to express the experience of beholding the awe inspiring natural world. Cole reflects, “the appearance and the content of my work comes from several sources: the joy of painting and creating, and my own social, psychological and ethical responses to the world as I live and view it.”
In the winter of 2009 I traveled in the mountains of Vietnam, north of Hanoi, just below China. In the small town of Sapa and on the trail to villages I made drawings in my sketchbook, inspired both by what was before me and by my longstanding love for mountain landscapes depicted in traditional Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese art. Those sketches became the basis for working drawings which in turn became paintings. Many of the works in this exhibition developed in this way while for others the vision emerged directly while painting. The styles of the paintings are quite varied but they all have a strong identity underneath. This process is consistent with my approach over many years as an abstract artist who has expanded that rubric to include a variety of techniques, imagery, signs and symbols when the need is felt.
