Wanderer ©Kesler Woodward 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 36" x 48"
After a very successful solo exhibit at Well Street Gallery here in Fairbanks in December, I am excited to be working on the last few paintings for my next exhibition, which will be at Stremmel Gallery in Reno, Nevada from March 13 through April 10. On my artist's page at the Stremmel Gallery website are images of twelve of the paintings that will be in the exhibition, including the five new canvases featured in this post.
Almost all of the paintings that will be in the Reno exhibition were completed in the past year, so they were done during a worldwide pandemic and at a time of great social unrest in our country and the world. Most depict the liminal time between darkness and light, but here in the North, we have hours of lingering, luminous twilight in every season, and this year I have been especially grateful for the magic of those long hours of dusk and dawn. I haven't set out to make paintings about the state of the world, and I wouldn't know how to do so if I tried, but the extraordinary light of Alaska has served as comfort and inspiration for me throughout this strange time. It has become more than ever a kind of metaphor for hope in a time of uncertainty.
Rising ©Kesler Woodward 2020 Acrylic on Canvas 36" x 36"
Fog and mist have been more frequent than usual throughout every season, these last couple of years in Interior Alaska, and I've marveled at the way mist can swiftly draw a soft curtain over this stark landscape. I like the way the low sun first breaks through and then gently lifts the veil, and I'm always heartened with its rising.
Auguries ©Kesler Woodward 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 36" x 48"
I go to my studio each morning and I paint, but the news of the world doesn't go unnoticed, and without conscious intent, the skies in my paintings seem to have reflected my reactions to both gathering darkness and reawakened light in the world beyond--to gathering storms and to prospects for peace. I was just beginning work on Auguries on the morning of January 6, and I completed Inauguration on January 20.
Inauguration ©Kesler Woodward 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 20" x 16"
Faerie ©Kesler Woodward 2021 Acrylic on Canvas 20" x 16"
And I've read even more poetry than usual this past year, savoring old favorites and finding, saving, and occasionally memorizing all or parts of new poems that have spoken to me during this time. Among my old passions, I've found myself re-reading a lot of William Butler Yeats, and several of my new paintings have come, I think, out of pondering his reflections on a world in turmoil, the power of legend, commitment to place, and the cyclical nature of history and life.
