As Legacy Gallery opens a new location in Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of its first events is a dynamite two-artist show featuring the work of painter Don Oelze and sculptor Paul Rhymer. The title of the show is Natural Encounters, which is a fitting name these bodies of work. 
Don Oelze, A Forest Encounter, oil, 40 x 38"
“One of the major themes in a lot of my work involves the meeting of two different cultures and the highly unpredictable outcomes of those encounters,” says Oelze. “The wild lands of the historic American frontier are where my paintings are rooted and where countless dramas occurred between man and beast and man and man. These stories are a part of the fabric that makes up our American character and for good or for bad, we have this national DNA. As our connection to the past becomes dimmer and the first small stones that built this great nation become buried under much new and constant construction, I hope that my stories in paint can serve as a small reminder and will strike the same chord which prompted my brushes to touch canvas.” 
Paul Rhymer, Dear Mr. Fantasy, bronze, ed. of 25, 23 x 11 x 9"
Rhymer says the title is a fitting description of his sculpture and it “exactly describes how I approach my own work. As an avid hunter, fisher, birder and dog walker I have the privilege of having constant exposure to wildlife and the natural world,” Rhymer says. “Hunting especially requires me to be still long enough to experience the subtle and the wondrous. Whether it’s watching a fox stalk prey while turkey hunting or watching warblers hunt for spiders on a trout stream, all of that experience goes into the stories I try to tell in my work. Nature and art are inseparable subjects to me.”
Don Oelze, Seeking Trade and Trust, oil, 38 x 44"
Works in the show include Rhymer’s Mama Bear and Jumping Jack Flash, which show him working with small and large animals with vastly different patinas. In Dear Mr. Fantasy, he sculpts an owl on a fencepost and names the piece after the 1967 rock song by Traffic. “Besides nature, music is my biggest source of inspiration. It can invoke emotion in an instant,” the sculptor says. “What higher honor can an artist have than have their work create an emotional response? I often tip my hat to music with subject and titles in my work; from Johnny Cash to the Grateful Dead.”
In Oelze’s A Forest Encounter, the mood is less playful and much more dangerous.
Paul Rhymer, Mama Bear, bronze, ed. of 25, 42 x 28 x 35"
“I have always had a respect and fascination for the early frontiersmen. They were a hardy, adventurous and, above all, a brave breed of men. It took a large amount of grit and guts to venture out into the wilds of the mostly unchartered territories beyond the eastern settlements,” Oelze says. “Every man who headed out knew that they might be leaving civilization behind for good and that their friends and kin would never know what fate had befallen him. The wild lands were the home of beasts but also they held other men as well. These men were of a different kind and were as wild as the lands themselves. For the adventurous frontiersmen, a chance meeting of these men was to be avoided. The result of such an encounter was unpredictable and although a meeting could lead to a bond of friendship, it could just as easily lead to a very bad outcome for all.” —
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