Coming to Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery is the anticipated Forests and Beyond—a show of around 20 new paintings by Francis Livingston. His work has evolved to include different styles and subject matter, ranging from impressionist scenes of California to colorful abstractions and cityscapes. In more recent years, inspired by his home in Sun Valley, Idaho, Livingston has also focused on Western depictions. In this new series of work, we see yet another shift in his style, while continuing to focus on imagery of the West including landscapes, Native American figures and pueblo architecture.
Dappling Woods, oil, 20 x 20”“In the past two years, I’ve been pushing the modernist approach to some of the work,” Livingston explains. “I’ve always had an affinity for abstract and impressionism, and even expressionism. All this stuff is mixed in but I’m also including modernism. I’ve always liked artists like [Wassily] Kandinsky [and other artists of that era]. Before they got into total abstraction, they had this period of time where they experimented with color and simplified objects but still there was a sense of recognizable elements. That’s where I’m headed with some of the work.”
Snow Banks, oil, 36 x 30”In a sense, there’s a lot of experimentation at play with Livingston’s new work—recalling his time as an illustrator “where I would always experiment,” he says. “You get these interesting techniques, textures and combinations that are sort of accidents. I’ve been using a print making roller to roll across wet paint in certain areas to create texture. As an artist, when experimenting, you either like it or you don’t, and you keep working.”
Livingston notes that each painting “calls out” depending on the subject matter to determine the style in which he will address the work. In show piece Snow Banks, featuring a snowy creek landscape inspired by his time in the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, he says, “[This piece] is an interpretation of a dynamic, pretty creek going through the snow. It didn’t call out for a lot of modernist stylization. There’s also a red willow—a color you don’t often see in the winter. When you do see it, it just pops.”
Waiting, oil, 15 x 15”For another significant show piece, The Turning, we see more of Livingston’s use of the modernist style. It’s also about a series of patterns over the entirety of the painting. The scene shows two women draped in blankets, with patterns taken directly from blankets shown at Medicine Man Gallery. “I liked the pattern on them and instead of painting the whole thing all the way down, I‘ve indicated some detail up high and let it disappear to let the imagination of the viewer fill in the rest,” says Livingston. “I also did this so it doesn’t become all about the blanket. I’m also showing pattern and texture in the foliage and trees in the background.”
The Turning, oil, 36 x 36”Overall, Livingston hopes to communicate a rich vividness in color and texture. “Paint texture is sculptural in a sense,” he says.
“I don’t want it to feel like a flat thing on the wall, I want people to feel that it has dimension.” He also notes that he tries to interject a mood into the work, rather than exact representations of his subject matter, hoping to evoke memory and feeling for his viewers.
The show will open with a reception at Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery on March 18, from 5 to 7 p.m., and will close April 14. —
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