Stremmel Gallery | November 6-December 6, 2025| Reno, NV

Perceptual Reality

Landscape painter Phyllis Shafer shows new works at Stremmel Gallery.

By Alyssa M. Tidwell

Living in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Phyllis Shafer is constantly surrounded by subject matter that inspires her. From the Great Basin High Desert to the expansive, open vistas, the painter’s works strive to capture the majesty of her desert home, in a style all her own.

Late Autumn on the Eastside, oil on linen, 22 x 32 in.

“I would describe my style of painting as magical realism or expressive realism, in that I am partially engaged in depicting the perceptual reality of a given landscape scene but also include exaggeration, distortion and stylization of the raw material that I have gleaned from my plein air beginnings,” Shafer explains. Her paintings—which begin as plein air studies and further develop back in the studio—immediately read as landscapes but cycled through a dream-like lens of swirling forms. “This style developed from my earlier paintings, while living both in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, which were more fantasy-based,” says the artist.

Old Friends, oil on linen, 16 x 20 in.

An upcoming show at Stremmel Gallery in Reno, Nevada, will feature new works by Shafer. “Phyllis is quickly becoming one of the most-important landscape painters in the West. Her work has always been about nature in a symbolic and allegorical way, and the recent body of paintings for Stremmel Gallery’s November show further enhances that visual narrative,” says Parker Stremmel, gallery director. “She is a painter who is driven by what she feels more than what she sees, which is somewhat of an anomaly for a contemporary landscape painter. That sense of emotional impression shines through in this new series of paintings.”

Arbutus Menziesii, oil on linen, 34 x 26 in.

Highlights in the exhibition include pieces like Late Autumn on the East Side and Old Friends, both of which capture different elements of desert life, small and large. “I like to juxtapose those intimate natural forms with deep vistas that honor the sense of place. For me, the contrast between the lovingly detailed flora and fauna in the foreground and the sweeping mountain or desert vistas is a way of understanding my own place in the natural world and how to come to terms with one’s own progress from childhood to maturity and on to old age and death,” Shafer says. “By studying nature, the cycle of life and death becomes more bearable and beautiful. It is my hope that my paintings can communicate the feeling of nature’s humility and divinity.”