Out of the West side of Ohio comes the great mind of Dan Knepper, who will be displaying his oil landscape and wildlife paintings at Findlay Art League Gallery in Findlay, Ohio, for the month of September. The collection of work is a beautiful display of adventure and patience at capturing the most perfect, serene moments in nature, and more specifically, in some of this country’s grandest places. Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, the Tetons and the Rockies have been the focal point of study for Knepper’s new works, bringing a bit of calm into our lives.
Jordan’s Creek, oil, 24 x 36"
Janealla Killebrew, board chair of the Findlay Art League describes Knepper’s large landscapes of the American West, “reminiscent of German American painter [Albert] Bierstadt…Dan’s realistic depictions, selected and perfected from images observed while visiting mountains, lakes, woodlands and creatures that inhabit them, are carefully modeled and intricate.”
This new collection of works is a result of a trip out west where Knepper “tried to be up before dawn to get that beautiful morning light.” While Knepper doesn’t paint plein air, he prefers taking reference photos to “capture a very specific moment.” He adds, “It’s like being on vacation, where you take a hundred photos to get that one perfect moment of light, and that’s what I try to find.”
Transcendence (My Toes are Cold), oil, 40 x 30"
Visiting the West for the first time a few years ago was a profound experience for Knepper. “It’s when I realized I wanted to focus on the quiet places, the off-the-beaten path, the places without people and just wandering. I’m represented by a gallery in Whitefish, Montana, and we (his loyal travel companions; mom and son) decided to visit and go to Glacier National Park to gather reference photos. Last summer, we went to Yellowstone. All of Montana is amazing everywhere you look; the changes in elevation, the atmosphere, the perspective. You have huge wildlife everywhere.”
If I Could Walk on Water, oil, 30 x 40"
Knepper’s great adventures are forever recorded in his powerful, yet quiet natural depictions, such as in Jordan’s Creek, featuring a beautiful body of water surrounded by forest. “This shows the end of the day in Lamar Valley, in Yellowstone,” he explains. “Jordan is my son and he was playing in the water, trying to get photos. It was a perfect moment in the Northeast corner of Yellowstone.”
In his piece Transcendence, of a serene scene of McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park, Knepper says, “It was one of my favorite spots of the whole park. We were driving by, and I had to pull over and take photos. We had our feet dangling in the water and, at one point, I got up, turned back around and a beaver swam directly where my feet had just been. The water is very, very clear but also this meridian color that feels lit from within. I tried to capture that.”
Wyoming Morning, oil, 36 x 36"
Other awe-inspiring water scenes from the collection are If I Could Walk on Water and Wyoming Morning, each oozing that peaceful, contemplative tenderness the artist himself experienced.
Knepper strives to convey the feeling of isolation among something so majestically beautiful—the quiet calm. These are the magical moments that he so elegantly captures in each piece and will be on display for all to experience from September 1 through September 24.
Upcoming Show
Up to 25 works
September 1-24, 2021
Findlay Art League Gallery
113 W. Crawford Street
Findlay, OH 45840
(419) 867-5309
www.findlayartleague.org
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