Tempest, oil on linen, 30 x 48" 

When to eliminate the superfluous and reconstruct more powerful ideas. How to transform the ephemeral into an object on a canvas. Painters have been confronting the same problems for centuries, he tells us, but the real challenge is in the interpretation. “If you seriously want to bring something into the visual world, into the real world, you have to be willing to move it out of what actually you saw and into what you feel and dream and sense and want,” says Nisbet. “To move it into the mythic you have to be willing to destroy form. You have to be willing to allow your imagination free reign and you also have to have boundaries that you impose upon yourself from years and years of study. It’s a whole series of interventions that take place in form, in shape, in color, in edges, in composition.” Nisbet notes how artists like Thomas Moran, George Inness, Albert Bierstadt, J.M.W. Turner and others also opted to alter nature. 

High Desert Dawn, oil on linen, 20 x 32" 

Nisbet is exhibiting around two dozen works in his upcoming show at Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, something manager Brad Stutor calls “a long time coming.” Due to Nisbet’s methodical painting process, they rarely have a chance to exhibit so many of his paintings at once, Stutor tells us. “And you know, a lot of them are larger scale,” he continues, noting how gallery visitors “feel like they can also sort of fall into them, get lost in sort of the space and timelessness of it.”

Hurry Up Canyon, oil on linen, 20 x 18"

Titled Atmospheres, the exhibition will feature Nisbet’s most celebrated subject matter—clouds and vapor—in the majority of the works. Whether it’s bouncing off a body of water, a desert range, or a freshly cut field of hay, Nisbet’s handling of light echoes his 19th-century predecessors. Or in the words of Stutor, “a bit of romanticism, a bit of sublime in there, but mostly, he’s a luminist. After four decades of painting, Nisbet is at the top of his field. He’s definitely one of our most profound artists.”

P. A. Nisbet with one of his new works.

“A dreamer with painting skill is what we would call a great artist, and that’s where serious artists like myself want to be,” says Nisbet. His work is an invitation for people to reflect on their own experiences in similar places, the artist tells us, encouraging viewers to look a little deeper and longer at the light on the land. “Look long and hard and lovingly at nature,” Nisbet recommends.