During a chat with Josh Elliott about his new show at Claggett/Rey Gallery, he was asked about the show title, Hush, but he quickly doubled back to reiterate: “It’s all lower-case and with a period at the end,” he said. It’s a simple change, but a profound one. It’s a word meant to be whispered in near silence. A word that barely exists. A word light enough to be carried away by the stillness of a cold morning. hush.
March, oil, 28 x 30 in.
“It’s a show about winter and the quiet times as the land hibernates,” Elliott says. “I just thought it would be really exciting to do a series of winter streams or snowy creek scenes. I remember talking to Glenn Dean quite a bit and we were talking about deadlines and things like that, and then I just mentioned to him how cool it would be to do a theme show where I could explore a subject. Once I said it out loud, I realized I had all these great ideas. I really wanted to get into the abstraction within realism. Once I had that part I realized a show like this presented me with some excellent opportunities for design.”
Traveler, oil, 15 x 35 in.
As excited as he was, there were also challenges. One of them was snow, which can pose a challenge to painters because of the intensity of the white, but also the values within a blanket of snow. It takes careful observation to perfect subtleties in white. Messing them up could be punishing to go back and fix.
“I knew I could use color harmony, and I knew I could use the snow to harmonize everything together, even as it turned into different shades of white and gray. But that was part of the fun,” he says. “I really enjoyed painting the ice, especially as I tried to make it translucent, or near water, which is more reflective.”
Spring, oil, 28 x 72 in.
He points to the piece Hush, which has a frozen patch of ice that fills the center of the painting moving down toward the bottom edge. The ice is not white, but a yellowish brown, which adds a dynamic and unexpected element to pristine scene of winter. “Around New Year’s Day, some friends of ours here in Helena, Montana, went with us out to some hot springs in Idaho. It was about three hours from our house and we passed a lot of frozen streams. My friend had seen Hush. He’s not an artist but he’s a big outdoor enthusiast and he was confused about why that ice is yellow. But once he looked at a frozen stream through an artist’s eyes, he could see all the color that was in ice. He never realized it was there,” Elliott says. “Maybe that’s part of our job as artists is to point out these things that we see that other people might not you know.”
But yellow ice amid an all-white scene is more than an observation. It’s also an intentional challenge added to a scene. “I like having restrictions like that in the studio,” he says. “That’s how I ended up with Hopscotch, because I wanted to do something that I felt was the opposite of Hush.I was aiming for variety, but I also just wante to paint something very different.”
Hopscotch, oil, 16 x 16 in.
Some of the locations of the paintings are near his Montana home, but also far away, like near Vail, Colorado. Some of the locations require trudging through the snow to find. “I don't have snowshoes, but maybe I should,” he adds. “For a couple of these I ended up with snow in my boots and socks, but I was just so excited because when you see this soft, subtle light or really great ice patterns you have to go out and get them.”
Elliott has grown comfortable using photo reference, but he still wants to see every location in person, which is why he’s willing to risk icy toes and wet socks. “Exploring is the fun part, which is why it’s so important that each painting be an individual work. Each one was made with a different motivation, a different place I’ve been, a different idea,” he says. “I don’t know what’s coming out of my studio next. I just paint what interests me. It’s great that people respond to that, and I’m grateful I get to paint the variety I get to paint.”
Hush, oil, 40 x 40 in.
The gallery agrees. “Josh Elliott’s paintings have a resonance which provides a sophisticated dance of color. He is not painting things but is composing elements which represent the whole. This may be a stream, storm or mountain vista, but really it is his visual diary of chasing the ideas in his head to create an aesthetic or sublime painting, which is reflective of the energy he experiences while on location,” gallery owner Bill Rey says. “Josh is not copying a photograph or computer-manipulated image. He is revealing a much deeper place in his soul, and the result is the beauty which his spirit embodies. He is a good man, and it is a pleasure to represent an artist who has such great energy and is excited to look, learn, experience life and reveal his creative truth for all of us to enjoy.”
hush. will remain on view through April 10 in Colorado. —
Claggett/Rey Gallery 216 Main Street, Suite C-100 » Edwards, CO 81632 » (970) 476-9350 » www.claggettrey.com
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