Bold Birches and a Show in Anchorage

Burgeoning ©Kesler Woodward 2017 acrylic on canvas 36" x 24"

I've been hard at work, riding an ongoing wave of pleasure in painting more directly, boldly, and sensuously than I have in some time.  Maybe it's the burgeoning light of summer and the rampant new life in both our garden and the boreal forest. I just know that I've been looking out my studio windows, seeing the beautiful birches in the woods around me brighten and peel as their trunks stretch and swell with new growth, and trying to capture a little of that fecundity. Each tree, each trunk, is an individual, full of life and character all its own.

Seven large paintings of mine will be in an exhibition at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage that opens this Friday, August 4, from 5-8 pm. The exhibit includes not only my paintings, but work by four friends--Fairbanks artists Bill Brody, Sara Tabbert, Adam Ottavi, and Annie Duffy. If you're in Anchorage on Friday, I'll hope to see you at the opening, and if you're there any time during the month of August, I hope you'll get a chance to see the show.

Rubenesque  ©Kesler Woodward 2017  acrylic on canvas  60" x 48"

 

Comments

[Kes Woodward]

Thanks, Cristine! The show at the International Gallery looks great--I think the five of us represented Fairbanks well--and the turnout and response was terrific. Thank YOU for the great eclipse card! (I got some of those cool eclipse stamps, too!) We're excited to see it at my Dad's house in SC, which is perfectly in the middle of the narrow 70-mile-wide band, so all my family are converging there!

[Cristine]

What an inspiring collection of new birches. I'm sure they will become old friends. As you say, they seem to each have a distinct character....like the titles too. Hope the show is wildly successful.

[Carol Crump Bryner]

Hope to see you and your paintings on Friday, Kes. Looking forward to it!