The components to a traditional Southwestern landscape vary between sun-kissed peaks, cavernous canyons, vibrant rock formations and other aspects of the ruggedly beautiful West. But there is one aspect that always remains.
The sky.
With his new show, Infinite Sky,artist Stephen C. Datz tilts his landscapes up to focus on jaw-dropping skyscapes that exemplify the sky’s contribution to union of earth and atmosphere.
Rain Dancing, oil, 40 x 50 in.
Growing up in Loveland, Colorado, Datz says he had a very pastoral upbringing but didn’t become interested in painting landscapes until his college years, backpacking with his girlfriend (now his wife) in the Escalante area of Utah. Over the span of a few more trips he started to become interested in landscapes from a visual and colorful perspective.
Like any artist, Datz’s technique evolved over time. “I used to be more of a completionist when working outside,” he says. “I would go out and do small paintings and I wanted them to be done.” He evolved from a plein air painter who only worked on location to eventually bringing the location to his studio, a laboratory where he could experiment with his landscapes, concocting pieces through memories and photographs entwined with his unique geometric style.
The Storm’s Epilogue, oil, 10 x 10 in.
The idea for Infinite Sky came from a previous show where he had included a painting of a thunderstorm. He was surprised how taken people were with the piece. He had never thought about doing a show of just sky paintings. Datz understands that the sky determines the mood of a landscape. It’s an element that dictates the story the painting is telling and can make the viewer feel a certain way.
“I hope to give a nice cross-section of different kinds of skies in different seasons of the year,” he says. “I hope the paintings will be evocative from that emotional standpoint of the sky not having to be full of clouds to influence the mood of a painting. I’m hoping for a broad swath of emotions. As people move through the show, they can sort of get a little bit of a different mood from each one.”
Each of Datz’s paintings carries a firsthand experience or memory that resonates with him. For example, the piece Rain Dance depicts a storm boiling up over his wife’s family ranch in western Colorado.
Cloud Armada, oil, 10 x 10 in.
“There was the eastern flank of the Grand Mesa in the distant background in that piece on the lower left,” the artist explains. “That’s the 10,000-foot mountain, basically. So you’ve got warm, wet, moist air getting forced up over that, and the storms that would fall from that eastern side right over the ranch country that we were in were just incredible.”
Datz hopes that gallery visitors will enjoy a different perspective from what they might normally see from his artwork and come away with a deeper appreciation of the sky and the important role it plays within a traditional Western landscape painting. The sky isn’t just the background, it is the catalyst that drives the experience of a piece and the emotions it is trying to convey.
Infinite Sky opens March 28 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. —
Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery 6872 E. Sunrise Drive, Suite #130 » Tucson, AZ 85750 (520) 722-7798 » www.medicinemangallery.com
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